


the same old streets

by thesameoldstreets



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Hockey, M/M, Original Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-05-25 12:25:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 90
Words: 216,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14977127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesameoldstreets/pseuds/thesameoldstreets
Summary: A story about hockey, dreams, and the universe's tendency to be a little shit.Six friends who used to play street hockey together when they were kids return to their hometown when they're all grown up and discover that even though they've changed, some things have stayed the same.





	1. trades, Chapter 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> This story updates on Fridays at 5 pm (EST) over on thesameoldstreets.tumblr.com. New chapters will be added here as soon as possible. Extras will only be posted on the blog.
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Comments and kudos are very much appreciated :)

**trades**

 

**Chapter 1.1**

*****

**NHL Watch** @hockeywatch

LA Lions GM Joe Davis is apparently looking to make one/several moves before the draft. Maybe looking for a new winger for Nicolas Rivera?

 

**Unofficial Panthers**  @ctpanthersnews

Looks like Sarah Albright is currently talking to the Hartford Panthers. More soon!

*

Alex would so love to be able to say that he left hockey behind when he hung up his skates five years ago, but that’s not how it works. He’s a Goldman. Goldmans don’t just  _leave hockey behind_. In his family, you leave hockey behind when you die. Maybe not even then.

So, occasionally, he watches a game on TV with Ashley. When he’s working at the rink and the kids are playing, he goes downstairs and high-fives them when they leave the ice, no matter if they won or lost. His house is full of his dad’s old jerseys, stacks of pucks, remnants of past hat tricks, pictures of his father with the other greats. Pictures of Alex, just a kid, holding up trophies, hugging his mom after a game, pictures of his junior team, his college team, and then they stop. No more pictures.

At least no pictures his dad put up.

When Alex stopped playing hockey –  _had to_  stop playing hockey – his dad signed on as a coach for the Seattle Sailors and moved across the country. His mom went with him. They come back during the summer for a week or two. Sometimes it’s just his mom, because his dad found a convenient excuse for why he can’t come home and look his only son in the eyes. In turn, Alex keeps coming up with reasons why he can’t join them for Hanukkah or any other festivity that might require his presence. He still feels guilty that he didn’t show up for his mom’s birthday, but his dad’s team was in the middle of playoffs and Alex didn’t think it wise to subject himself to that kind of atmosphere.

Still, he sees the trade rumors. The news. He’ll watch the draft. He’ll remember getting drafted all those years ago, he’ll remember pulling on the Washington Eagles’ jersey, he’ll remember that he believed, for a while, that his future was bright.

He was going to be one of those guys who who live and breathe for the game, who get to live their dream, day after day after day. Now he’s back where he started. Back in Cedar Mills, back in the house he grew up in when Zachary Goldman was the face of the Connecticut Cardinals and little Alexander was dreaming of a future in which he was just like his dad.

He understands now that the best thing that’s ever happened to him is that he didn’t turn out just like his dad.

“Did you see?”

Alex looks up and finds Ashley hovering in the door. She’s carrying three pairs of figure skates. Her red Cedar Mills Vikings hoodie clashes horribly with her ginger hair, but they do support their own teams around here and Ashley supports them extra hard. “Did I see  _what_?” Alex asks. He already knows that it’s about Sarah, but he’s not in the mood to admit that he spent the last half hour scrolling through Twitter to see what moves are being made before the draft.

“Sarah might be coming home,” Ashley says. “The Panthers haven’t confirmed it yet, but she’s definitely talking to them.”

Alex hasn’t seen Sarah in a while. Actually, he ran into her at the grocery store last year when Sarah was home for Christmas. She had a boyfriend in tow and a big smile on her face and Alex only waved at her and ducked out of the store, buying only half of what he’d meant to buy, because he felt guilty about never having gone to a single one of her games after his sophomore year at college.

“Good for her,” Alex says and pulls an open folder across the desk, pretending that he’s busy.

Ashley nods, grabs her skates a little tighter, and wanders off.

The kids are still skating, so Alex has about ten more minutes before he has to go down and fix the ice before Ashley’s skating lesson. If someone asked Alex what he likes most about taking care of the rink, he’d immediately say that it’s driving the Zamboni. It’s always been his favorite thing. When he was a kid, he often stuck around after practice and asked Patty to teach him how it works.

His dad thought it was a waste of time. Goldmans don’t drive Zambonis.

Well, Alex Goldman does drive the Zamboni. Pretty much every day, except for Wednesdays. Ashley’s here all day on Wednesdays, because she insists that Alex has to take a day off here and there, but he wouldn’t leave the rink in the hands of anyone else.

His dad tried to talk him into coaching when he couldn’t play anymore. Alex said no. His dad then tried to talk him into changing his major. Alex, once again, said no. He finished college. He did that, a year late, but with honors. After graduation, his mom took him out for dinner and asked him what he wanted to do next. Alex said the first thing that came to mind. “Do we need someone at the rink?”

Patty, who’d been taking care of the rink for the Goldmans, showed him the ropes, then, last summer, he retired. Towards the end of the year, his mother sent Alex the papers for the rink, pretending it wasn’t a Hanukkah present. Alex has no idea how she managed to talk his dad into giving him the rink. Maybe his dad is hoping that he’ll start coaching a team after all if he spends enough time here and that he’ll eventually start working for an NHL team. He’d probably even be pleased if it was an AHL team,  or a college team, but Alex isn’t going to do him that favor.

At the rink, even though he can’t skate, Alex feels weirdly at peace. This is the way it is now. He is just Alex. Alex, who owns the rink, Alex who organizes fun trips to hockey games but never goes himself, Alex who cheers for the kids. The kids don’t know what he could have been.

Sometimes they ask him why he doesn’t skate, and he tells them he can’t. He probably could. On a good day. He doesn’t want to find out.

*

“Where do those people get their rumors from?”

Sarah wanders into the kitchen, tilting her head. Nate is standing by the window,  his tie dangling off his neck, his suit jacket hanging over a chair. Just got home. He isn’t wasting any time on hellos.

“What people?” Sarah asks.

Nate holds up his phone. “The people on Twitter.”

“Oh no, what are the bad people on Twitter saying now?” Sarah asks. “Has David O’Connor signed his contract yet? How much is he getting? A big bag full of money?”

Nate blinks at her, looking confused. He doesn’t follow hockey and he likes to pretend that he knows even less about what’s going on in the major leagues than he actually does. It brings him joy to act like he’s not wasting his time with something as silly as rooting for a sports team.

He does root for Sarah. Occasionally. He wishes her luck before games, and he comes to a few here and there, but hockey just isn’t his thing.

“Some weird account that apparently only exists to spread rumors said you’re signing with the Panthers.” Nate shakes his head. “Honestly, do they just pull that stuff out of their ass?”

Sarah drags her finger over the kitchen counter. Nate spilled salt on it this morning when he was making his breakfast eggs and he didn’t clean up properly. “I think they might be saying that because the Panthers contacted me about signing with them.”

“Did they,” Nate says flatly.

“Well, it’s not unusual for them to reach out. There’s only six women’s teams in the area, and–”

“And you won’t be signing with any of them, so what’s the point?”

Sarah doesn’t reply. They’ve tried to have this discussion so many times that she’s lost count, but somehow they still haven’t managed to finish it.

“Wait a second.” Nate folds his arms across his chest. He has the lawyer-y  _I have you all figured out_  look on his face. “Are you thinking about signing with another team?” He doesn’t wait for Sarah to reply. “Babe, we’re moving to  _California_. You can’t just decide to stay here for another year without talking to me about it.”

See, Sarah is a peaceful person. She doesn’t yell, not off the ice. She always tries to be the happiest, politest and gentlest version of herself, but Nate occasionally manages to bring out the absolute worst in her when he does  _that_. “How is this different from, ‘Sarah, I accepted a job in San Francisco and we’re moving there at the end of August.’ You didn’t ask me.”

“Well, you’d already told me that you wouldn’t be playing hockey forever. It’s not like you make a lot of money with it and when we move to San Francisco, we’ll get married and we’ll have kids, it’s not like you’ll still be playing hockey then.”

Sometimes, in the past, Sarah wondered how people could just make a decision like they’re flipping a switch. Sarah isn’t that kind of person. She makes lists. A question, neatly written out at the top, then two columns. Pros and cons. Today, she doesn’t make a list. Today she flips the switch. Nate never asked her if she even wanted to go to San Francisco. Those discussions they never finished? They always ended with Nate telling her that she wasn’t making enough money, that he didn’t mind providing for them both, because she’d need to stay home to take care of their future (three) kids anyway, but then they’d have to move, so he could work a better job with a better income. And then he accepted that job. Without asking her.

And this morning, when Elena Turner called her to talk about the goalie position on the Panthers that needs to be filled, Sarah didn’t immediately tell her that there was no chance that she’d be signing with another team. She’s not ready to retire, but there are no professional teams in San Francisco, so she said she’d think about it.

A few seconds ago, Nate made that decision for her. Actually, he was the one who flipped the switch.

It’s the last decision he’ll make for her.

“I think it might be better if you went to San Francisco without me,” Sarah says. She can already hear her mother yelling about it. Nate was going to propose to her. They met in college, they loved each other, but in the end, Sarah has to admit that she only stayed because it seemed like the right thing to do. It was comfortable, having someone who cared, it gave them both a sense of security. But is Nate the love of her life?

It’s been keeping her up at night. And the fact that she still doesn’t know if she can answer that question with a yes should tell her everything she needs to know.

“I’m sorry,” Nate says, “I don’t understand.”

Oh, he does understand. He understands, just like he knows who David O’Connor is, even though he likes to pretend that he doesn’t. “What I mean is, I never said I wanted to move to San Francisco, you just made that decision without me and kept pretending that I wanted to go as well. And I went along with it.”

“And you’re telling me that  _now_?” Nate asks, his voice steadily growing louder. “Why didn’t you say something?”

“I  _am_  saying something.”

“It’s too late now.”

“It’s not,” Sarah says. “You can still go. I’ll stay.”

“And you think I’ll be willing to be in a long distance relationship with you? Just like that? You can’t just spring that on me, Sarah. It’s inconsiderate. That’s not like you at all.”

“I wasn’t talking about a long distance relationship.” And he knows that. He knows. It was only mildly annoying in the past, but now it’s making her furious.

“What, are you breaking up with me?”

“Yeah, Nate, I think that’s for the best.”

“Where is this coming from all of a sudden?” Nate asks. “Are you… Have you been seeing someone else?”

“What?”

“Is it that girl you’ve been hanging out with? What’s her name? Kelly? Katie?” Nate shakes his head. “I should have known.”

“I’m not cheating on you, Nate.”

“Then why are breaking up with me out of the blue?”

“Because I don’t want to move to San Francisco with you. I want to play hockey. And not just for one more year. I want to play hockey for however long I can. I want you to support me, but you just want me to have kids and you haven’t even asked me if I’m ready for that. That’s why I’m breaking up with you.”

“You’ll regret this. Tomorrow morning, you’ll have changed your mind. You always do.”

She never does.

“I’m gonna spend the night at Dani’s,” Sarah says. “And I’m coming back to get my things when you’re at work tomorrow.”

Nate only scoffs, grabs his jacket and his keys, and storms out the door.

Sarah is still spending the night at Dani’s, though. The first thing she does when she’s in the car is to send Elena Turner an email, asking her to please give her a call tomorrow. She’s still interested in signing with the Panthers.


	2. trades, Chapter 1.2

**trades**

 

**Chapter 1.2**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

it’s been approximately two seconds since the Eagles won the Cup but I miss hockey

*

When Nadira’s roommate gets home, Nadira has already buried herself under three blankets and is shoveling Ben & Jerry’s into her mouth. She’s watching  _Marley & Me_ and she’s ready to cry for several hours.

This morning, she got yet another rejection email. It’s actually astounding that they got back to her at all. Some of the places she sent applications to didn’t even bother to say no.

“Bad day?” Dee asks.

“The worst day,” Nadira says. It’s not even noon yet.

Dee hosts a morning show. She has to get up at the asscrack of dawn, but it’s a job she actually enjoys and that pays the bills, and Nadira would give many, many things to be in her shoes. At this point she’d even settle for a job that just pays the bills, no need for any kind of enjoyment.

Nadira was actually living her dream for a little while. She worked hard, got promoted and covered hockey. For two years, she was doing exactly what she wanted to do. She was living her best life. And then she got laid off. Her and a handful of other colleagues. It doesn’t really make her feel any better that she wasn’t the only one, but a lot of people tend to act like it should. At least she didn’t get fired because she messed up or because her writing was shitty, right? To Nadira, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

In the meantime, she’s been doing some freelance things here and there, but she’d really rather have something more permanent.

“I’ll never find a job,” Nadira says. “I’ll sit on this couch until the end of time. Maybe I should get a cat to keep me company. Actually, I can’t afford to take care of another living being. Okay, maybe a goldfish. How do you feel about goldfish, Dee?”

“You’ll find something else,” Dee says. She sits down next to Nadira and pats her knee. “You know how it is, with the doors, they open, they close, sometimes they’re all closed. That’s where you’re at.”

“I don’t want the closed doors.”

Dee ruffles her hair. “One of them is going to open when you least expect it.”

She really believes that. Dee believes in the good things in the world. Nadira did, too. Part of her still does, but it’s easy to lose sight of those things when you’re slowly wasting away on a hot pink couch that’s covered in chips crumbs.

“You know what you should do?” Dee says. “Take a shower. Put on a pretty dress. Go out with me tonight. Kiss a cute girl. Take her home.”

“I want to sit on this couch forever,” Nadira grumbles.

“But there are so many cute girls out there.”

Nadira pulls one of her blankets over her head in reply. She had a girlfriend last year. For about two months. She was dating a girl in March. For two weeks. Then she was dating a girl in May. For the length of approximately two playoff games.

She always loses it a little bit during playoffs. But one of her childhood friends made it to the Western Conference Finals. Connor Walden was on her TV, and he was on the road to win the Cup, and even though the Colorado Hawks didn’t make it, Nadira was insanely proud of him. She has his jersey and she didn’t wash it until the bitter end.

That boy had to fight so hard for a spot on the roster of an NHL team. Quite frankly, he’s totally underrated. With the right D-partner, Waldo could be a lot better than he is right now, but Nadira isn’t a GM and she isn’t pulling any strings. She’s just a watcher. She isn’t even writing about it. She’s been thinking about starting a blog, an anonymous one, because then no one would know that she isn’t a white guy, so people might actually give her a chance.

She’ll look into it, but she’s currently busy becoming one with this couch.

“Listen, Nadi,” Dee says, “I can cover the rent for a few months if you run out of money, it’s not the end of the world if you don’t find anything right this second.”

“I don’t want that.” Nadira pulls the blanket off her face. “I want to… not be useless. I want to stop feeling like this whole city is against me. Maybe I should go somewhere else. Maybe that’s the open door. New York hates me. New York has had enough of me.”

“New York doesn’t  _hate_  you.”

“New York at least severely dislikes me,” Nadira says. She scrapes together what’s left of her ice cream. “I thought it was my destiny to live here and be a successful journalist, but that’s clearly not the case.”

“You’re giving up. You’re twenty-six. That’s not a good time to be giving up. I worked shitty jobs for  _years_ and look at me now. Maybe I’m not where I always wanted to be, but I’m happy. You’ll be happy, Nadi.”

“So, you’re saying I should, I don’t know, just find some random job and take it from there?”

“Probably wouldn’t be a totally bad idea.” Dee ruffles her hair and gets up. “I’ll go out and buy ingredients for lasagna, okay?”

“You’re so good to me.”

“Someone has to make sure you eat something other than ice cream.”

Nadira sighs.

She wants the universe to give her a sign. She wants the easy way out. If she goes and finds a job, any job, a job that has nothing to do with writing or hockey, she’s scared that she’ll lose sight of the dream. The dream where she covers the big hockey teams and has her own apartment and marries a girl who also loves hockey and wears jerseys and screams at the TV with her.

Dee is more of a baseball person, but she still screams at the TV. It’s just different teams she’s screaming at. A different ballgame. Still, they understand each other, and if Dee and her hadn’t realized a long time ago that they’d never work as a couple, if they’d just met, Nadira might be tempted to ask for her hand in marriage.

About two seconds after Dee has left on her mission to bless Nadira with her lasagna and Nadira is ready to go back to wallowing in self-pity, her phone chimes with an incoming text. From her mother.

 

**[Mom]**

_hhartford gazette is looking for reporter!!! suzie toldme, she’s friends with jessica norris_

Okay. This was not what she meant when she said she wanted a sign from the universe.

Going by all the typos, her mom is clearly under the impression that this is the best thing that could have happened and is already way too excited about it. She’s been telling Nadira that she can come home whenever she wants, that she’ll always have a room under their roof, just in case things don’t work out the way she was planning. Nadira’s mother always wanted her to succeed, but she also made sure to remind her that it is okay if she doesn’t, that they’ll continue to be her family, and that she’ll always have a place to come back to, even when she feels like she has nowhere left to go.

Nadira appreciates that. But going home was never part of her plan. To her, going back to where she started would seem like she failed.

She still thanks her mother for the tip. She just wants Nadira’s best. Her mom replies with Jessica Norris’s phone number. Nadira doesn’t put down her phone. She could call and ask about that job. She’s a sports reporter, maybe they’re looking for someone who does local politics. Nadira could find her way into that if she had to, but that would be too much of a compromise.

She won’t give up the city  _and_  the sports.

But she can ask. Maybe they don’t want her anyway. Really, they probably don’t. She knows nothing about what’s happening in her hometown, other than the gossip her mom shares with her and the stuff the people who never left home post on Facebook. Sometimes Ashley sends her updates, but their conversations are in no way regular. A  _hello_  here, a  _how are you_  there, but they always fizzle out. Until a few weeks ago, Nadira lived a busy life. And so does Ashley.

Ash has always been one of those people who never found a second to relax. She was a world class figure skater, of course she didn’t. That girl has a medal at home and she worked hard to get it.

Nadira stares down at her phone. She’s at a crossroads here.

Whatever. She’ll call Jessica Norris.


	3. trades, Chapter 1.3

**trades**

 

**Chapter 1.3**

 

*

**NHL Watch**  @hockeywatch

Sources confirm that Lions are working on trade deal with Cardinals, involves D Cody Jackson and draft pick from Cardinals.

|

_replying to_  @hockeywatch

Currently unclear what Lions are offering in exchange.

 

**NHL Watch**  @hockeywatch

Cardinals are reportedly also talking to Colorado Hawks concerning another deal

*

“Mr. Alex, look!”

One of the kids who should be downstairs putting on his skates for hockey camp darts past Ashley, nearly knocking over her bucket. She’s cleaning the big chalk board next to the entrance and Alex is cleaning up the front office, throwing away old flyers and grumbling about broken pens.

Alex sticks his head out the door. “Hey, Mason, careful there.”

Mason shoots Ashley an apologetic smile.

“How’s it going?” Alex asks and abandons his pens and holds out his fist in greeting.

Alex knows every single kid who comes here somewhat regularly. He knows if they come here just for fun, or for figure skating lessons, or for hockey. He helps them with their equipment, ties laces, and organizes fundraisers so the kids whose parents can’t easily afford new equipment will get a new pair of skates or a new stick here and there.

They have rentals, of course, and sometimes people will donate their used equipment, but Alex insists that it’s not the same and Ashley knows that he’s right. Ashley remembers getting her first pair of figure skates for Christmas. She doesn’t remember how old she was, or what else she got that day, but she remembers the wrapping paper, bright red, she remembers pulling off the glittery silver bow, remembers putting them on and sitting there on the carpet in her parents’ living room, bouncing up and down, badgering her family to please, please, please take her to the rink immediately, even though they kept telling her that the rink was closed. So she gets it.

Mason bumps his fist against Alex’s and grins, pulling at the Cardinals jersey he’s wearing. “Look what I got for my birthday.”

“Nice, look at that C,” Alex says. “Josh Roy, huh? Is he your favorite?”

Ashley has already seen that Mason has an 89 on his back. Joshua Roy has been the Cardinal’s captain for years. He’s their guy. The face of the franchise. He’s been their top scorer ever since he was drafted. He went second, ten years ago. Ashley knows, because she used to be madly in love with him and once had a picture of him stuck to the wall behind her bed. Every time Jamie was in her room, he’d just stare at him, and Ashley eventually asked him if he took offense. She probably would have kicked his ass out the door if he’d said yes, but what he did says was, “Nah, I get it, he’s hot,” and Ashley decided that she’d keep him around for a little while longer.

They’re getting married next summer.

“Better go put your skates on,” Alex says to Mason. “Don’t wanna be late for camp.”

“Are you watching our game on Sunday?” Mason asks. “We’re playing against the other camp.”

Alex obviously knows that because he’s the one who thought it was a good idea to pit tiny children against each other. “They’ll all get a prize, Ash,” he told her when she said that she thought the kids were competing enough during the season. Ashley just never had enough time to skate for fun when she was a kid, so it bugged her a little, but the kids seem to be looking forward to their game.

“Yeah, I’ll come cheer you on,” Alex says to Mason.

Mason grins and then he disappears around the corner.

Alex watches him go and turns back to his pens, a smile still lingering on his face. Ashley is glad that Alex didn’t just cut hockey out of his life completely. He’s not playing, he’s not coaching, but he’s still here, and he’s supporting the kids, and it seems that knowing that it means the world to them is enough for him.

Sometimes she wonders if this is really all Alex wants, if the only dream he ever had is completely out of reach and he doesn’t care enough to find himself another one.

Ashley casts another glance at him, but he’s already back to tossing pens into the trash, so she also goes back to wiping the board. They usually put a bucket with chalk next to the board, then the kids, and whoever else happens to come by, draw on it. When there’s no room left on the board, either Alex or Ashley will take a picture and wipe it.

When she’s done, Ashley wanders over to the office where she’s hiding the chalk for now. There’s a lot hidden in that office. A bowl full of chocolates, for example. Ashley leans inside and reaches over the desk to fish one out of the bowl and Byron, sitting behind the desk, looks up.

“So…” Ashley says and tries to throw away her chocolate wrapper. It lands right in front of Alex. “Sorry.”

Alex grabs it and throws it away for her. “So?”

“Huh?”

“You said  _so_.”

“Right. Jamie is going out with his football bros tonight to watch a baseball game and I’m not willing to waste away my youth sitting around at home on a Friday night, so how about we go out?”

Alex puts on his standard  _how do I say no without hurting her feelings_  face. He hates going out in all forms, unless they’re driving to Five Guys to get dinner. Ashley understands why he refuses to go out clubbing. Sometimes his knee still acts up. Ashley isn’t a stranger to injuries; she had to stop competing a lot earlier than she wanted to because of her joint problems. But maybe they could watch a movie or get drinks somewhere.

“I have to be here for the disco skate,” Alex says.

“Yeah, but you’ll be out of here by ten. And then what? Are you gonna go to bed?”

Alex glares at her. “Yeah.”

“Okay, grandpa, you do you,” Ashley says and pulls her phone out of her pocket. She has a text from Jamie that he sent during his break –  _love you_   _xxx_  – and a text from her mom –  _bought you a bridal magazine!! saw a dress in it that you’ll love_ , plus a string of emojis, because her mother knows that she’s already losing her shit because of the wedding – and a handful of Instagram and Twitter notifications. She made an Instagram account for her cats two years ago and it has much more of a following than she would have ever expected. Sometimes she’ll sneak in a picture of Byron as well, because who doesn’t love a happy golden retriever?

Ashley almost chokes on her chocolate when she reads the first Twitter notification. It’s from NHL Watch. She loves a good trade rumor. This tweet isn’t a rumor, though. It’s news about Connor Walden –  _Colorado Hawks trade D Connor Walden to Connecticut Cardinals for F Blake White_.

She nearly drops her phone while she tries not to die because of a piece of chocolate. It’d be a cruel way to go.

“You okay?” Alex asks.

Ashley coughs. “Connor Walden just got traded to the Cardinals,” she says and shows Alex her phone.

“For Blake White?” Alex asks. “He was terrible last season.”

“Yeah, well…”

Alex smirks. “Are you trying to say that Waldo was also terrible? I mean, he wasn’t great, but that’s just because the Hawks basically gave up on him the second he had two bad games in a row.”

“Have you been watching Hawks games?”

“Occasionally,” Alex says with a shrug. “I mean, I just wanted to see how he’s doing these days.”

“Oh, really? But you haven’t been watching Lions game, have you?”

They have an acquaintance on the Lions, too.

They used to play street hockey together when they were kids. The both of them, and a bunch of friends. Some of them grew up to be hockey legends. Well, one of them. Nick Rivera plays for the LA Lions. He was sidelined with a concussion for a few weeks last season, but he’s still one of their best players.

When Sarah started playing street hockey after school, it was only her and Connor Walden at first, because they lived across from each other in Cedar Lane. Then Nadira from down the street joined them, and one day she brought Sarah from The Mills, the expensive neighborhood across the stream, and with Sarah they had a goalie, and then Nick, whose backyard was adjacent to Nadira’s backyard, joined them too.

Ashley remembers the day Alex found them as well. He wasn’t friends with any of them before. Still, they all knew who he was. Zachary Goldman’s kid. And when the kid of a hockey legend comes by on his bike and stops and asks if he can play with you, you don’t say no. So Connor handed Alex his spare stick and from then on he was part of the gang.

The gang, of course, didn’t last. Ashley started to travel for figure skating competitions, they all made different friends on different teams, Nick left to play in Canada, and Connor and Alex usually played hockey on the ice and rarely ever in the street. Alex told Ashley years later, when they were both back in Cedar Mills, that his parents never liked it when he took off to play with them.

Years later, they’re not really in touch anymore, the six of them. Ashley and Alex ended up back here at the same time almost by chance. The universe sort of decided to fuck them over at the exact same time. Alex did go back to college to finish his degree, but they spent a whole summer together after his accident, even though they’d barely talked for years.

“No, I haven’t been watching any Lions games,” Alex says.

Because at some point Alex started hating Nicolas Rivera. Ashley doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but she’s pretty sure that it has a lot to with how incredibly successful Nick is, because Nick is out there living Alex’s dream and Alex is back home, with his own rink and a golden retriever, but no dreams at all.

“Honestly, Nicky turned into a self-righteous prick and I’m glad he’s on the other side of the country.”

Ashley sighs at him. It’s true, what’s being said about Nick in the media isn’t always positive. It’s been insinuated that Nick Rivera is arrogant. That he’s too cocky when he talks to the media. The other day, she even read that he has a drug problem, which is obviously complete bullshit, but there’s probably more than enough people out there who believe it. The thing is, Nick is also the guy who’s always being caught giving away sticks, he’s the one who throws pucks over the glass during warm-ups, and waves at kids, and stops for photos and makes silly faces. The media should spent a little more time talking about that side of him instead of making up rumors.

“What?” Alex says. “It’s true. Have you even talked to him since he got drafted?”

She hasn’t. “Neither have you,” Ashley says.

“I don’t need to talk to him to know that he’s a dick.” Alex smooths down Byron’s ears and whispers, “Pretend you didn’t hear that.”

“The dog doesn’t care how many bad words you say, Alexander. Whatever, you don’t like Nick, it’s fine. Have you been in touch with Connor? Like, at all?”

She was never close with Connor, but she knows that Alex was. They started hanging out even when they weren’t playing street hockey, here at the rink. Alex was here a lot because the place belonged to his dad, and one time Connor was practically bouncing up and down in his seat on the school bus because he’d met Zach Goldman at the rink the day before.

“Yeah,” Alex says quietly.

Oh, there’s something there, Ashley can tell. “Yeah?”

“I text him for his birthday.”

“That’s nice of you,” Ashley says. She doesn’t even have Connor’s phone number.

“Yeah,” Alex says again. He takes a chocolate out of the bowl, but he doesn’t unwrap it. “He invited me when he made the Hawks’ NHL roster and they were playing in Hartford last season.”

“Oh.”

“I said no.”

Ashley isn’t sure why it surprises her that Alex said no. He watches games on TV.  He never goes to any in Hartford, though. As Zachary Goldman’s son he could probably get free season tickets for the Cardinals if he asked. His dad’s number is hanging from the rafters.

“I should call him,” Alex goes on. “I should… I don’t know. He’s coming back here, so I should at least text him.”

Ashley hums. “Tell him I said hi.”

*

Connor’s day has been full of phone calls.

He talked to Gregory Hansen who was convinced that Connor would do much better with the Cardinals. Apparently they specifically asked for him as soon as they started talking to the Hawks about a trade. Connor still isn’t sure if he actually meant that. He knows least season wasn’t great. He knows that the Hawks wanted to get rid of him, so this trade doesn’t exactly come as a surprise. Now he’s going from a team that barely made the playoffs to a team that nearly got swept in the first round.

The Cardinals have already announced that they’ll be making some changes, but Connor is pretty sure that he’ll be placed on waivers and on the way to the Cardinals’ farm team in no time.

He talked to his agent.

He talked to his mom. “If you need a place to stay, sweetie, we’re twenty minutes away from the Cardinals’ practice rink.”

One thing Connor knows for sure: there’s no way in hell he’s spending even just a second at his parents’ house. People don’t understand why he doesn’t like going home, because his parents are, at first glance, good people. They are until the doors are closed and his father drinks too much whiskey and starts shouting.

So he said, “Mom, I have more than enough time to find a place to live, don’t worry.”

“Well, you’ll have to come here to look at places.”

“I’ll come by for dinner, I promise.”

“Connor,” his mom said, “your dad’s been doing a lot better. He’s really trying.”

Sure, he has those phases where he’s really trying. When he came on the Hawks’ dads’ trip, he was the perfect dad. Said how proud he was and how hard Connor fought to get to where he was and what a great time he was having. Connor doesn’t doubt that his parents are proud of him. He knows that they are, no matter what. It doesn’t change that Connor’s dad has his issues.

He’s not sure how he feels about being so close to home.

In any case, Connor will try his hardest to stay in the NHL, no matter what team he ends up being on.

He did well enough in the AHL, but his dream was always the NHL. He got traded before he’d even played more than two NHL games, then he was with the Hawks and they sent him back down. Another year in the AHL and two call-ups later, he finally made the Hawks’ opening night roster last season. It took weeks until he scored his first goal, and he ended up getting scratched often enough, but he was finally where he wanted to be.

About two seconds after Connor said goodbye to his mom, promising again that he’ll come home soon and that he’ll take her and Dad out for dinner, his phone starts ringing again.

_Unknown Number._

Connor plays with the thought of just ignoring it, but today is not a good day for ignoring phone calls. He almost ignored Hansen’s call too, because he’s visiting his cousin in Florida and they were about to head to the beach. Now he’s glad that he didn’t, and he appreciates that Hansen told him personally. He would have hated hearing the news from some random dude at the beach.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Waldo, it’s Josh Roy.”

The captain. That was fast. “Oh, hey,” Connor says, “it’s, uh, nice of you to call.”

“Yeah, just got a text that you’re joining us next season and I figured I’d give you a quick call. If you need anything, you have my number now. I’ll be in Canada for a few more weeks, but if you’re headed to Connecticut and need a place to stay, some of the guys are around. If not, I’ll just give you a sightseeing tour once we’re all back for training camp.”

“Thanks, man. I’m actually from Cedar Mills, so I know my way around.”

“You still got family there?”

“Yeah, pretty much my entire family lives in the area.”

Josh laughs. “Nice, well, I guess then I have nothing to offer you. Seriously, though, give me a call if there’s anything we can help you out with. We’re happy to have you.”

“Thank you,” Connor says. He’s pretty sure that he’ll have roughly a million questions about two seconds after he hangs up the phone.

“Sure thing. I’ll see you soon, yeah?”

“Yeah, see you.”

Connor hangs up and finds three texts from former teammates who are wishing him good luck with his new team. Even though Connor wasn’t the best player on the Hawks, he still loved those guys and they loved him right back. He’s never had problems fitting in.

He puts down his phone and picks it up again a moment later to go on Twitter for the first time in forever. He tweets about how excited he is to be joining the Cardinals, and the Cardinals retweet it half an hour later. In the course of the day, a few of his new teammates like the tweet, a couple of them follow him on Instagram, and he gets a welcome text from Matt Jones, who’s pretty much the Cardinals’ team dad.

It’s after dinner, when he’s sitting out on the porch while his cousin is upstairs tucking in her kids, that his phone starts ringing again.

_Alex Goldman._

Probably the last person Connor expected to hear from today.

“Hey,” Connor says.

“Hey, it’s Alex.”

“Yeah…” He saw as much. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Alex says. “I’m actually just calling, because I saw…”

“Right, yeah. Headed back home. Weird, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m not gonna ask if you’re excited, because if I were you I wouldn’t know what to say, but…” Alex trails off and Connor can basically see him shrug. “Anyway,” Alex goes on, “Ashley says hi.”

“Ashley O’Leary?”

“Yeah, she helps me keep the rink running.”

“Oh, cool. That’s cool,” Connor says. He hasn’t really been in touch with Alex. They played against each other in juniors here and there and when they both happened to be home at the same time, they met up, but that was before Alex stopped playing hockey.

After that… well, Connor called him when he heard about the accident, but Alex didn’t answer his phone, so he left him a message, and Alex never called him back. Connor wasn’t really expecting him to. Alex kept up his birthday texts, though. He’s never missed a single one. Sometimes Connor thinks about calling him, but then he remembers that Alex can’t play hockey anymore and Connor really doesn’t want to rub it in. He invited Alex to a game in Hartford last year without thinking too much about it and then Alex said he couldn’t come and Connor could have kicked himself, because of course Alex didn’t want to come watch him play hockey when he can’t play hockey himself anymore.

It’s good to know that Alex is still in touch with Ashley. At least he has friends at home, because as far as Connor knows, most of Alex’s family lives in New York and his parents are obviously in Seattle, because his dad is coaching the Sailors. Not that Alex has the greatest relationship with his dad. It’s probably better this way.

“Anyway,” Alex says. And that’s all he says. Just  _anyway_.

Connor still isn’t sure why Alex called him. He didn’t call the first time Connor got traded. Not that he minds talking to him. Alex is the kind of person he loves talking to, because Alex actually listens. Connor trusts him; he’d trust him with his deepest, darkest secrets. “Hey, maybe we can meet up when I come to Connecticut. I’m gonna have to find a place to live anyway. Maybe one of the guys needs a roommate or something.”

“You know,” Alex says, “if you need a place to stay, for however long, I’ve got a bunch of empty guest rooms. I mean, I know your parents still live in town, but… I just wanted to offer, but now I’m starting to realize that you probably have tons of people you could stay with and we didn’t talk much during the last couple of years, so it’s kinda weird.” Alex clears his throat. “Well, I’ll… leave you to it.”

“Yeah, uh…” For some reason, Connor feels like this is the nicest thing anyone’s said to him all day. “Thanks man, I appreciate it.”


	4. trades, Chapter 1.4

**trades**

 

**Chapter 1.4**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

#Cardinals acquire F Nicolas Rivera from LA Lions in exchange for D Cody Jackson and a 2017 1st round draft pick

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Welcome to the #Cardinals family, @NickRivera13!

*

The trade isn’t a surprise to Nick. It’s not a surprise to the Lions. It’s a surprise to pretty much everyone else, though, so it’s somewhat understandable that everyone’s going batshit crazy about it.

Nick watches it all happen from his house in Venice Beach. He sees the tweets and the articles, the speculation, the accusations. He knows what’s true and what isn’t, and that has to be enough for him, no matter how frustrated he gets, no matter how much he wants to shout into the void.

_You have no idea what you’re talking about_.

Nick wanted this trade. The Lions did, too. He didn’t tell them, and they didn’t tell him, but it was bound to happen. It’s the best solution for everyone involved. The Lions got a player and a first round pick for him. It’s a good deal, especially because they secretly wanted to get rid of him.

Nobody knows what’s really going on. People are saying that he was being difficult, which is true to some extent, although it has less to do with him being a diva than everyone is suspecting. Some are even insinuating that he has a drug problem. He’d find it funny if it wasn’t so insulting.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what people are saying. It’s done. He’s going to leave LA and he finally feels like he can breathe again.

“Nicolas Rivera is an elite player and he’s been an incredible asset to this organization,” says Lions GM Joe Davis in an interview that day. “We still needed to change some things about our line-up. We didn’t clinch a playoff spot for the first time in nine years in this past season and were swept by the Sailors in the first round in the season before, so we felt the need to change things up.”

Maybe there’s some truth in it. It doesn’t matter much to Nick.

He tweets about how excited he is about the opportunity to join the Cardinals and there’s a little too much truth in it.

His mom calls to ask him if he’s okay. He tells her that he’s fine and that he knew all along and that he’s glad that the Lions traded him to the Cardinals. In a way, he’s going back home. His parents moved to Virginia when he was sixteen and playing hockey in Canada, but their house in Richmond never felt like home to him, not like the house in Cedar Mills did.

When Nick thinks of home, he doesn’t even think about the house he’s living in right now either. It’s just a thing he bought when he signed a seven-year contract with the Lions. He’s going to have to sell it now, or maybe rent it out. He has all summer to figure it out.

He’s going to have to find a place in Connecticut, but first he’ll spend some time with his parents, and they’ll visit his mom’s sister in Puerto Rico together. Maybe he’ll give Connor Walden a call. He got traded to the Cardinals last week, and Connor and Nick go way back. They were friends when they were kids. Sort of. They were drafted the same year as well. Only Nick was a first round pick. He was drafted third overall and he probably could have spent the rest of his career with the Lions, but they decided he wasn’t worth the trouble.

Connor Walden was drafted in the fourth round and has never done anything to make a name for himself, at least not while he was on the ice. Off the ice? That’s a different story. Connor Walden is a fan favorite not because of how great of a player he is, but because of who he is as a person.  

Every time the Lions played the Hawks last season, Connor would grin at him from across the ice during warm-ups, but they never talked much. They never talked about home. They never talked about how they were on the same team once, even if it was only in Cedar Lane. Now they’re on the same team again, years and years later. Nick remembers sitting on the Waldens’ front porch with Connor, Connor’s parents arguing quietly about something behind closed doors, and Connor saying something like, “Maybe we’ll all play in the NHL, you and me and Alex. Maybe we’ll be on the same team.”

“There’s thirty-one teams, we’ll probably be playing against each other and not together,” Nick said. By the time they were drafted, there were thirty-two teams and they had even less of a chance of ending up on the same one.

“That’s kinda sad.”

“I’ll still wave at you from across the ice.”

Connor laughed. It seemed funny, but they already had big dreams back then. Nick wanted to play in the NHL more than anything else in the world and he had to work hard for it. Connor had to work hard, too, but for different reasons.

Alex Goldman never made it to the NHL.

He was drafted and played in college and then some drunk guy hit Alex’s teammate’s car and that was it. One of Alex’s teammates died in that car crash and Alex hasn’t played hockey ever since. Nick knows all that because he read it in articles. He didn’t call Alex. He didn’t visit him at the hospital, even though he could have. He should have. He hasn’t seen Alex Goldman in years, not since the last summer he spent in Cedar Mills. He was sixteen and Alex was home for a bit before he left for college. They met up at the Goldmans’ rink and they skated together and Nick was so jealous but also so happy for Alex because he was so close to living his dream already. He’d play in college and then in the NHL and Nick just wanted to be where Alex already was.

He should have at least called Alex when he heard about the accident, but he wouldn’t have known what to say. And now it’s too late.

Josh Roy calls Nick in the afternoon to welcome him to the team.

The thing is, Josh Roy is probably one of the nicest guys in the NHL. Nick remembers playing against the Cardinals in Hartford a few years ago – it might have been his rookie season – when one of the Cardinals slammed him into the boards and he tripped. Josh Roy was the first one there, bending down to ask him if he was okay, even though they weren’t on the same team.

And because Josh Roy is one of the nicest guys in the NHL, and because he’ll be Nick’s captain next season, Nick needs him to know that what they’re saying about him in the media is half-truths and lies.

“Josh,” Nick says when Josh is done with the captain-y  _let me know if you need anything_  speech.

“Yeah?”

“The stuff in the media… I don’t have a drug problem.”

“I know,” Josh says, and he actually sounds a little amused. “Don’t worry about it, kid.”

It’s weird that Josh is calling him  _kid_ , even though he’s just a couple of years older than him, but Nick will roll with it. “Okay.”

“I’m sure the rest of the guys know as well.”

“Thanks, Josh.” Nick is quiet for a moment and so is Josh, because Josh is probably the sort of guy who senses when someone’s not done talking yet. “Hey, do you have Connor Walden’s number?”

“I do, yeah. You wanna say hi?”

“Yeah, if that’s okay. We actually grew up in the same town.”

“Really? Man, that’s cool. I’ll text you his number, all right?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

Josh sends him Connor’s number about five seconds after they’ve hung up the phone, but Nick doesn’t call him right away. He’s not really sure what to say to Connor Walden either.

There’s some underlying nervousness about moving across the country, about playing for a different team, because he spent years feeling perfectly secure, knowing that if he scored enough goals he’d get to stay, and now everything is up in the air. Nick does his best to push it away. He was excited ten minutes ago, and he still is, and he won’t let anything ruin this for him. It’s a fresh start, in a way.

Nick can only hope that things will be different in Connecticut –  it’s a fresh start, even though he’s going back to where he started. It might not be a bad idea to spare a few thoughts on the things he thought he’d left in the dust.


	5. home, Chapter 2.1

**home**

 

**Chapter 2.1**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Road trip!! Just me and my 762102 boxes #movingisfun

 

**Hartford Panthers**  @panthersNWHL

Our new goalie @sassalbright is signing her contract today! She’ll be answering your questions starting at 2PM (EST), use #PanthersQandA

*

Nadira’s mom is over the moon when Nadira tells her that she got the job at the  _Gazette_. She’ll be covering everything sports related in the area from high school football to Hartford Panthers games. Well, she won’t be covering major league football. Or baseball. Or basketball. What saddens her most of all is that she won’t be covering men’s hockey. Brad’s already taking care of the Cardinals. Nadira hasn’t met Brad yet, and she’s willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but she’s somewhat afraid that he’ll turn out to be a grade A douchebag.

In any case, she’s glad that she’ll get to cover at least some hockey. The Panthers are an exceptional team and Nadira can’t wait for the start of the hockey season. She covered a few women’s hockey games here and there in New York as well and apparently Jessica Norris wanted someone to cover women’s sports for the  _Gazette_.

Nadira is starting next Monday.

Until then, she can try to figure her life out. Or at least part of her life.

Dee takes her on a Goodbye New York tour before she leaves and they end up back at their apartment, with a couple of slices of cake from their favorite bakery, both of them crying, promising that they’ll visit each other, Dee saying over and over that Nadira will come back soon anyway and that she’ll make her amazing veggie lasagna for her and that they’ll go to their favorite bar and that they’ll still be friends even when they’re not living in the same apartment anymore.

Nadira hopes so. Most of all she hopes that this is a detour and not a U-turn.

She sells her furniture and packs whatever she has left and stuffs it all into her old Chevy. She was playing with the thought of selling it a few months ago when she still had a job. Now she’s glad that she didn’t, because otherwise she’d have to ask her mom or her dad to pick her up and the thought alone is completely mortifying. She’s an adult. And while she did occasionally (or actually pretty often) call her parents because she needed advice from an adultier adult, she’s already feeling bad enough because she’s moving back home.

Nadira is going to live with her parents again and she knows there’s nothing wrong with that and that she’ll find her own place eventually and that her parents are actually happy to have her back home, but she doesn’t want this. She hates the whole concept of giving up her independence.

But it’ll be okay. She’ll find her own place. That’ll be her first step.

On the drive back to Connecticut, she listens to old cassette tapes and wonders, not for the first time, what she’s done to deserve this. She’s a good person. She’s nice to old people. She donates to charities whenever she can. She’s polite to everyone who’s polite to her.

Once she’s out of New York, she blinks away a couple of tears. Something is ending and she’s never been good at leaving. The weeks leading up to her high school graduation were quite possibly the worst of her life. She wasn’t ready. For years she knew she was going to leave home and go to college, but she still spent hours being quietly terrified about leaving home. She flew to Europe with a friend during the summer and she went to Paris and to London and to Berlin, to Prague and to Vienna, then to Rome and when she came back home and started packing for college, she was terrified all over again, and when she graduated college and Dee and her decided that they’d move to New York, she was so scared that the only thought on her mind was,  _I can’t do this_.

She feels exactly like that today. Like the world is about to end. But the truth is that the world will keep turning, no matter how scared she is. Deep down, somewhere under the fear, she knows that she can do it. She’s been scared so many times, and she’s still here. The problem is that she left all of her rational thoughts back in New York.

When she pulls into the driveway of her parents’ house, her dad’s car is there, even though Nadira told her parents a billion times that there’s no need for them to take time off work, because she still has a key.

Nadira tried to give it back when she moved to New York after college, but her parents insisted that they wanted her to have it. So she could come home whenever she wanted to. She’s starting to wonder if the key maybe jinxed her entire life. She can’t decide if she believes in this sort of thing, but right now she’s on the lookout for reasons. Maybe there isn’t a reason for this. Maybe there’s no bigger plan. Maybe this just happened, because sometimes things just happen.

Her dad gives her a hug as soon as she’s in through the door and helps her with her boxes. She’s not staying in her childhood room; she’s staying in the basement. Her childhood room is full of chunk, because a couple of years ago her dad turned the basement into a TV room so he could watch Hell’s Kitchen in peace without Nadira’s mom complaining about “the angry man”, so the basement junk had to go somewhere else.

Her dad is gonna have to watch Hell’s Kitchen somewhere else now.

Not that Nadira is planning on staying in this basement for too long. She probably won’t even unpack most of her boxes. Just the ones with the stuff she absolutely needs. Like the one with the bathroom stuff, and also the one with her hockey shirts. Possibly also the one with the clothes she needs for work.

“So,” her dad says when they’re both sitting on the couch, staring at her boxes and IKEA bags, “are you hungry?”

“In a second,” Nadira says. She actually feels like she’s three seconds from throwing up. Here she is, in the basement, with her boxes. Her bed is crammed into a corner. She doesn’t even have a proper closet and she’s suddenly glad that she gave three pairs of shoes to Dee. “I think I’ll unpack some things first.”

“All right,” her dad says and tugs at the end of her braid. “I’ll be upstairs. Your mama asked me to take care of the laundry. Let me know if you need any help.”

Nadira waits until her dad has trudged up the stairs and the door is closed, then she lets out a deep breath. She’s here. She’s made it this far. The basement is temporary. Having her parents around constantly is temporary as well. This is like a one-week vacation. Except it might turn out to be two weeks. She’s already looked around on the internet and she asked her mom to keep an eye out, but so far she hasn’t found anything that even remotely suits her needs.

She doesn’t need an entire house. Or a huge apartment. She can’t afford any of that anyway. Her best bet is probably to find another apartment to share with someone else, but finding someone to live with is a lengthy and excruciating process. Nadira met Dee at college and she knew all along that they’d get along and that Dee wouldn’t turn out to be an axe murderer. She doesn’t have that kind of luxury now.

They go out for dinner at her mom’s friend’s restaurant – it’s an Italian place right by the town square.  _Giuliana’s_  has the best pizza in a fifty-mile radius and Nadira really missed that place when she lived in New York. When Giuliana hears that Nadira is back home “for good” – or at least that’s what her mom says – she gives her free dessert. The tiramisu at  _Giuliana’s_  is also the best in a fifty-mile radius.

She makes it through two days without anything to do, but she’s still adamant about not unpacking most of her boxes, so she just stares at them and tries to find a new place to put them. She looks at three apartments and hates all of them. One of them is too expensive, the other one is too small, and the third one smells like something died under the floorboards.

Nadira even looks at two small houses. She doesn’t need a house, but she’s getting increasingly desperate. They’re no good either, of course. Unless she wants to find herself four roommates, which is even more impossible than finding one.

On Friday evening, she’s so annoyed that only a pint of Ben & Jerry’s can save her. That and maybe a Ryan Gosling movie.

*

“I just don’t understand…”

Sarah has lost count of how many times her mom has said that she doesn’t understand, but she should understand. Sarah’s mother is a smart woman; she went to Harvard. Her biggest disappointment in life was probably that Sarah didn’t. Or at least it was until Sarah broke up with Nate. “What is it that you don’t understand?”

“I visited you in Boston two months ago and the two of you were perfectly fine,” her mom says.

“Naomi, come on, give her a break.”

Sarah appreciates that her dad is trying to come to her rescue, but she already knows that her mom won’t let this go. She never does. And maybe Sarah should be glad that her mom is interested in what’s going on in her life, but there is such a thing as  _too interested_. Sarah’s love life has always been part of their regular dinner table discussions and even though Sarah has spent her entire life being as evasive as possible, there usually comes a point where she has to tell her mom about her significant other and then she generally spends half an hour being cross-examined.

_Who is he? Where’s he from? What’s his major? Where did you meet him? Does he have a criminal record? How many speeding tickets has he got?_

From there on out the questions always get increasingly ridiculous, so on some occasions, Sarah didn’t mention that she was seeing anyone at all. She couldn’t really avoid mentioning that she broke up with Nate, though. They were together for years. Her parents liked him. And she had to explain why she was signing with the Panthers instead of moving to California.

“Sarah,” her mom says, “that boy would have proposed to you.”

Because clearly getting married should be her number one priority in life.  _Clearly_. And, sure, Sarah does want to get married one day, but it’s not like it has to happen right this second.

And there’s also that teeny-tiny problem Sarah had with Nate. “I didn’t want him to propose to me.”

“Why not?”

“He just wasn’t…” Sarah shrugs. He wasn’t the love of her life and she wouldn’t want to settle for less. She’s a hopeless romantic. She wants to find her soulmate. And Nate was not her soulmate. She isn’t sure why it took her so long to realize. “He wasn’t the right guy for me.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you just broke up with him? You didn’t even try to figure it out?”

“I’ve been trying to figure it out for  _months_ ,” Sarah says. “He never listened to me when I said I wasn’t happy.”

“But, sweetheart… I don’t mean to alarm you, but you’re not getting any younger.”

“ _Mom_.”

“I’m just saying…”

“Your mom and I got married when we were still in college,” her dad says and winks at her, “but it’s okay if you want to do things differently.”

“Well, it’s too late for her to get married in college anyway.”

Sarah glares at her mom and turns her attention back to her mashed potatoes. Her mom made them today because she knows that Sarah loves them. She just wants Sarah’s best, and Sarah understands that, but there’s a line and right now the mashed potatoes aren’t distracting her well enough to keep her from getting angry.

Her mom seems to sense that her otherwise so calm and collected daughter is close to snapping, because he takes a deep breath and puts on a smile. “Honey, I’m sorry, that might have been a little harsh. You’ll find someone.”

Sarah only smiles. She doesn’t kick off yet another discussion about her life choices by telling her mother that she’s currently not even interested in finding someone. She’s been in a relationship for so long that she doesn’t even remember the perks of being single and she’s honestly looking forward to rediscovering them. She doesn’t  _need_  anyone.

This is a completely fresh start for her.

She signed her contract with the Panthers this morning and she’s moving in with one of her new teammates tomorrow. She let Nate have their furniture, she let him have the TV and the dishes. Sarah did take her favorite mug, though. She took her romance novels and her Disney movies that Nate always scoffed at. Honestly, Sarah should have known that Nate wasn’t the guy for her when he said that  _Tangled_  was silly. He refused to watch it with her, because he thought it was too childish and told her to watch it with her girlfriends. He always acted that whatever Sarah enjoyed was somehow beneath him. It really should have tipped her off.

After dinner, she sits down on the couch with her parents. Her dad is trying to find a movie on Netflix that all three of them are going to like and her mom is apparently still not willing to let Sarah and her love life be, because she says, “You know, I hear Miles Brown is single again.”

“Good for him,” Sarah says.

“His mom works at the hospital, maybe I could get his number for you?”

Sarah presses her lips together. She’s been home for approximately twenty-four hours and she doesn’t want to get into a fight with her mother already. It usually takes at least two days for one of them to get snappy. There’s never any shouting or door-slamming, just dark looks that slowly turn into death-glares. “I think I’m gonna go buy some candy.”

“What, now?” her mom asks.

“Can you bring me some peanut butter cups?” her dad adds.

“Absolutely,” Sarah says. She needs a quick break. “Mom, do you want anything?”

Her mother shoots her an accusing look. “No, thanks.”

“Take my car, kiddo, yours is full of stuff,” her dad says. “You know where the keys are.”

Sarah grabs the keys for the Mercedes on her way out the door. He’s still using the football keychain that Sarah got for him when she was a kid. He used to play, now he coaches college football. No one in her family has ever had anything to do with hockey, but her mom once took her to the Goldmans’ rink during Christmas break and some of the kids there were waddling around in hockey gear, getting ready for practice. Sarah refused to go skating and instead dragged her mom to the second rink to watch the kids play. It was a complete coincidence.

She goes to Stop & Shop even though it isn’t the closest grocery store. She gets the peanut butter cups for her dad and then aimlessly wanders about, unsure what she wants to get. The only thing she actually wanted was to get out of there for half an hour or so.

Sarah goes and grabs a bag of Doritos and then makes for the ice cream aisle, because ice cream is never a bad idea.

She forgets all about the ice cream when she turns the corner and nearly walks into a girl who’s clearly lost in thought, considering the Ben & Jerry’s choices. “I’m so sorry,” Sarah immediately says.

The girl blinks at her. It’s Nadira. Sarah just walked straight into Nadira Patel.

“Sarah,” Nadira says, “you’re home! Of course you are. I saw that you signed with the Panthers today, congratulations!”

“Thank you,” Sarah says and gives her a big smile. “What are you doing here? I mean, back in town, not here at the grocery store.”

Nadira laughs. “Buying ice cream here, back in town for a new job.”

“Nice, what kind of job?”

“I’m starting at the  _Gazette_  on Monday,” Nadira says. “I’ll be covering the Panthers as well, so you’ll probably see me around.”

“I can’t wait.” Sarah is honestly glad that she already knows one of the reporters she’ll be dealing with. Talking to the media has never been her strong suit. She feels like she never says anything interesting. “We should get together sometime before the start of the season to catch up.”

“Absolutely.” Nadira stares at the ice cream in front of them, lips pursed. “I’d invite you to my place, but I’m currently sleeping in my parents’ basement, because I’m somehow unable to find an apartment I like. Or one that’s affordable. Or one that I won’t have to share with several roach families. Maybe I’ll just stay in the basement, I’m not really planning on staying here forever anyway.” Her eyes go a little wider. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to overshare. It’s just that you’re the first person I’m actually happy to see ever since I got here. Except for my parents.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Sarah says.

“I went to Starbucks earlier and Evan Miller’s working there now. We went to high school together and he always called me Chutney and thought he was the most hilarious dude on the planet, what a douchebag, honestly, and seeing him made me so mad and I don’t even think he remembers, and maybe he’s not a brainless douchebag anymore, who knows, but  _I_  remember, so I didn’t put anything in his tip jar, because I was so mad.”

Sarah grins. “I support your choices.”

“I just overshared again, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay,” Sarah says. “If I hear about an affordable apartment that comes without roachy roomies, I’ll let you know.” She pulls her phone out of her bag. “Here, give me your number, I’ll give you a call next week. I’m off to Boston because I have a job at a hockey camp there for a couple of weeks, but maybe we can go out for a coffee before I leave. But not to Starbucks. There’s this really cute café downtown…”

“ _Millie’s_?” Nadira asks, her eyes lighting up.

“Yeah, that one.”

Nadira hands Sarah’s phone back. “They have the best chocolate cake.”

“I know, right?” This trip to the grocery store was the best idea that Sarah has ever had. “So, chocolate cake date next week?”

Nadira smiles brightly. “I can’t wait.”


	6. home, Chapter 2.2

**home**

 

**Chapter 2.2**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

saying goodbye to my roomie @shanewilds33 today, i’ll miss u buddy!!

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

:((

*

Driving down the Goldmans’ driveway sort of makes Connor feel like it’s 2004 and he’s ten years old and going to Goldie’s to hang out and play video games. Only it’s 2017 and Connor isn’t ten anymore and he’s not sure if he’s even still friends with Alex Goldman. What he does know is that Alex didn’t offer him one of his guest rooms just to be polite, because Alex isn’t the kind of guy who says things he doesn’t really mean.

When the Cardinals asked Connor if he could come to Connecticut for a few interviews, Connor said yes, because he always visits his parents during the offseason anyway, but then he called his mom and she tried to hand the phone to his dad so he could say hello and he snapped at her, and in that moment he felt like he absolutely couldn’t go home, so when his mom said, “Your dad is, uh, busy right now, sorry. So when will you be arriving? I’ll get your room ready,” Connor, without thinking too much about it, replied, “I’m actually gonna stay with a friend.”

His mom was disappointed, of course, but she sounded a little happier when Connor promised that he’d take them out for dinner. “And you guys can come to my first game in Hartford.” If he doesn’t get sent down. The Cardinals would have to place him on waivers and then another team might pick him up and– Maybe he shouldn’t go looking for a place around here just yet.

Since he’d already lied to his mom, Connor ended up calling Alex about that guest room. It’ll be just for a couple of days anyway. Connor parks his car in front of the house and walks up the steps to ring the doorbell.

The Goldmans’ house is massive. It’s a mansion, actually. And Alex lives here all by himself. Connor wonders if he gets lonely or if this is exactly what he wants. Whenever Connor came here when he was a kid, he felt this weird kind of tension in the air. He couldn’t really put his finger on it, but he always noticed how much more Alex smiled as soon as they were out of the house.

When Connor rings the doorbell, a dog barks inside. Once. Then the is yanked open and Alex is beaming at him. “Hey, that was quick.”

“Yeah, didn’t get lost,” Connor says.

“Come in,” Alex says and ushers him inside. “You want a tour? Or… what’s the plan?”

“I don’t really have a plan, to be honest. I have a meeting with the Cardinals’ management tomorrow and we’re probably also doing some media stuff…”

“You and…”

“Nick,” Connor says. Yeah. He’s on the same team as Nick Rivera. He talked to Nick Rivera just a couple of days ago and they had a really awkward conversation about how funny it is that they’re both going back home. Nick’s parents don’t even live here anymore, so maybe to him this doesn’t feel like coming home as much as it does to Connor.

Connor can only hope that the interview he and Nick are supposed to do together tomorrow won’t end up being as awkward as that phone call. He usually doesn’t mind doing social media stuff; he likes answering silly questions much better than he likes answering questions about what a terrible season he’s been having. At this point, he’s hoping for a miracle. It’s all he wants, really. A good season with the Cardinals.

“Right,” Alex says. “Nick. So… you wanna meet Bryon?”

“Is that the puppy?” Connor asks. When he called Alex, he told him that he could absolutely have one of the guest rooms, but that he’d have to deal with a dog that doesn’t know what boundaries are.

“A big puppy, yeah.”

Alex opens the door to the kitchen – back in the day they spent a lot of time in there, digging through the fridge – and a golden retriever comes bounding out the door, tail wagging, circling around Connor twice before Alex tells him to sit and Connor can scratch him behind the ears.

“Who’s the best puppy? The softest puppy?”

Alex snorts, and shakes his head, and says, “Careful there, if you’re that nice to him, he might not let you leave again.”

“That’s okay, I’ll stay here forever to pet him.” Byron makes a soft  _boof_  sound and Connor instantly wants to adopt him. “Such a good boy.”

“He really is.”

“For how long have you had him?” Connor asks and two seconds later he wants to kick himself again, because they’re already approaching the  _we haven’t really talked in a while, so I know basically nothing about you and your life_  territory. Connor was hoping to avoid that, at least for today.

Alex doesn’t seem to care, though. “I’ve had him for about a year, but he’s three. He belonged to Ashley’s neighbor, but she moved away and couldn’t take him, so she asked me if I wanted him. I don’t know, I guess she thought having a dog would cheer me up or something.” He makes a face, like he also just realized what kind of territory they’re in. He shrugs. “I guess she was sort of right about that.”

“Well, he’s adorable, so…” Connor trails off, because he has no idea where he was going with that.  _He’s adorable and that probably really distracted you from the fact that your life didn’t turn out the way you thought it would_. Yeah, right.

Alex smiles and there’s nothing awkward about it. “Do you want a tour of the house first or do you remember where everything is?”

“A tour would be good, actually,” Connor says. He probably set foot in about three rooms when he used to come here as a kid. Alex’s room, the kitchen, and the bathroom.

Most of the rooms turn out to be half-empty because Alex isn’t using them. “My parents pretty much gave the house to me, they took most of their stuff to Seattle, so…” Alex waves his hand dismissively. There are a bunch of scars on his forearm that are probably from his accident. “I moved into the master bedroom, but the guest rooms are pretty big as well.”

Alex leads him up the stairs, points out his own room, and leads him down the hall. He opens one of the doors there.

“Hey, wasn’t your bedroom back here?” Connor asks, looking around.

“Yeah, over there…” Alex nods at a door across the hall. “Anyway, this one’s yours.”

It’s a pretty standard guest room and it even has a TV, but unlike at his parents’ house, this one is free of ironing boards and boxes full of his brother’s stuff. Connor’s big brother got out of Cedar Mills as soon as he’d finished high school. He went to Columbia and stayed in New York. He has a girlfriend and they both bought Walden jerseys and came to Connor’s games in New York and Jersey last season, but he doesn’t come back home anymore unless he knows that Connor will be around as well.

Alex helps him get his stuff from the car and they dump most of it in the foyer downstairs. Yes, the Goldmans’ house has a foyer. It’s not huge or anything, but this place is still ridiculous.

“There’s towels in the bathroom upstairs… And I’ve got some food in the fridge, but if there’s anything you want me to get for you, let me know.”

“Yeah, speaking of food, I was gonna take my parents out for dinner tonight, do you wanna come?”

“Nah, I have to be at the rink tonight, but thanks.”

“Maybe I can come to the rink later and we can…” Connor snaps his mouth shut. Can he maybe, just for once in his life, think about what he’s going to say  _before_  he opens his mouth? He was about to suggest that they could hang out at the rink, but Alex probably doesn’t feel much like hanging out in a place where he’d have to put on skates.

“Hey, if you want to skate tonight, one of the rinks closes at eight after figure skating lessons are over. I can let you in. I’ll be there anyway, because the guys will be around for hockey practice until ten. Usually Jane used to do Monday nights, but she’s pregnant and she’s been having some issues, so she can’t work anymore, and I haven’t found anyone that I trust with a key to the rink just yet, so I’m just working overtime, sort of.”

“Oh, I mean, we can just hang out here later,” Connor says.

Alex’s lips twitch. “Okay. I have to leave in about half an hour, but you have my number and–” Byron appears behind him and gives his leg a nudge. “I’m taking him to the rink with me, but when he’s here and you don’t want him in your room, you’re gonna have to close the door.”

“That’s fine,” Connor says. He wants to coo at Byron 24/7 anyway.

“All right, I’ll get you one of the spare keys, so you can let yourself in later. You need anything else?”

Connor shakes his head. This is already going so much better than expected. “Thanks, Alex.”


	7. home, Chapter 2.3

**home**

 

**Chapter 2.3**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Send us your questions for @NickRivera13 and @ConnorWaldo and they’ll answer them in a special summer episode of #CardinalsTV!

*

“Can you believe that Connor and Nick are on the same team?” Ashley says.

Alex looks up from his sandwich but he doesn’t reply.

They’re in the kitchen across from the main office for their lunch break, both of them not really in the mood for a chat. They usually aren’t back here at the same time, because if Alex isn’t in the big office in the back, he’s either in the front office, manning the register, or downstairs to fix up the ice between skating groups, and Ashley is off teaching figure skating and sharpening skates in between. They divide it all up between the two of them during the summer when the rink isn’t too busy.

“I mean, we used to play with those guys,” Ashley goes on. Connor is actually staying at Alex’s and she’s still not really sure how that happened. The other day, Alex mentioned it in passing, like it wasn’t newsworthy in the slightest.  _Oh yeah, I have an NHL player staying in my guest room._  No big deal. Happens all the time. He’s Alex ‘Famous Hockey People Constantly Come And Go At My Place’ Goldman.

And now Alex somehow went from  _I text him every year on his birthday_  to  _He’s staying at my gigantic mansion while he’s looking for his own place_  in absolutely no time.

Connor is going to come by later. Right now he’s doing some radio show with Nick, and Ashley just came across a video the two of them did for the Cardinals’ Twitter page. Ashley isn’t one of those super intense fans; she doesn’t always watch these things. She doesn’t have to see every single photo and like every single tweet, she doesn’t comment on Facebook posts, she doesn’t know every detail, like who was the third line center of the Cardinals twenty years ago, but when it’s people she knows or even people she used to be friends with, she’s suddenly the most interested person on the planet.

She has a feeling that she’ll be watching less figure skating videos and more hockey come fall.

“Do you mind if I watch this?” Ashley asks, vaguely waving at her phone.

Alex shrugs.

Ashley can tell that he’s not really listening. He’s leafing through a stack of papers, holding up his sandwich like he was about to take a bite and then forgot all about it halfway to his mouth. Byron is sitting under the table, eyes on the sandwich, waiting for a crumb to drop.

“What are you even looking at?” Ashley nudges Alex’s foot under the table. “Anything interesting?”

“Applications,” Alex mutters and finally tears his eyes off them. “We need someone to fill in for Jane once business picks up again.”

“And no one in that pile is qualified?”

“I mean, I’m not even officially looking for someone yet, it’s way too early, but people drop these off even when I don’t ask for them, because they know I’m gonna hire people at some point,” Alex says. “These are mostly teenagers, though, which is great for skate rentals and the hot dog booth, but there’s no one who can actually replace June so far. Like, I need someone I can trust with a key to the rink.”

Alex is peculiar about the rink and Ashley knows she has reason to feel honored because Alex trusts her enough to give her a key, but sometimes she still wants to tell him to relax. Just a little bit.

“I can tell my mom to ask around,” Ashley says. Her mom and the adjacent mom circle spreads news, rumors and requests at light speed. It’s both impressive and slightly scary, but Ashley’s mom uses her power for the greater good. Some of the people in town get chatty about things that are absolutely none of their business, and maybe Ashley and Jamie sometimes whisper about the neighbors when they’re sitting on the couch together with a glass of wine in the evening, but they don’t go to  _Millie’s_  and talk about it there so the entire town can hear.

Alex grins. “That might help.”

Ashley’s mom loves Alex. Whenever she makes cookies, or cake, or the banana bread Alex likes so much, she gives Ashley some to give to Alex. Ashley doesn’t have the heart to tell her that Alex is pretty damn good at making those things himself. Honestly, Alex’s chocolate chip cookies are to die for.

Ashley sends her mom a text and then goes back to Twitter to watch that video of Nick and Connor.

It starts with some generic upbeat song that probably gets ridiculously annoying when you watch a few of those videos in a row. There’s a title card –  _CardinalsTV_  –  _The Cardinals Answer Your Questions_  –  _Today: Nick Rivera & Connor Walden_ – and it stays on the screen for way too long and serves the single purpose of making the video seem longer than it actually is. Ashley taps her fingers and waits for the title card to fade.

Then there’s Connor and Nick, sitting on a couch, two bowls full of scraps of paper between them. They both look like they’d rather be somewhere else. Connor is smiling nervously, today with all of his teeth, and Nick keeps running his fingers through his hair because it won’t stay out of his face.

“Who starts?” Connor asks someone behind the camera. “Doesn’t matter? Okay, then I’ll just…” He fishes a scrap of paper out of his bowl and turns to Nick. “Why do you wear the number thirteen and which number would you pick if thirteen was already taken?”

“I wear it because it’s my lucky number,” Nick says. He stops talking, raising his eyebrows when Connor looks at him expectantly. “Oh, and I guess if I couldn’t have thirteen, I’d probably go with my birth year. Ninety-four.” He taps his fingers on his thigh for a moment, then he seems to remember that they’re supposed to take turns asking questions. He takes a question and clears his throat, blinking at the question like it’s the most confusing thing he’s ever seen. “Is a hot dog a sandwich?”

Connor answers without missing a beat. “No, it’s a hot dog.”

Nick shoots him a look like he wants to ask something like,  _Why are you answering that question like that’s a perfectly normal thing to ask?_   “Okay,” he says. It also sounds like a question.

With a grin, Connor grabs the next question for Nick. “What do you do when you’re not training or playing hockey?”

“Uh…” It seems that Nick actually has to think long and hard about that question. “I read.”

“Cool,” Connor says and twirls the piece of paper around his finger.

Nick smiles tightly and swiftly moves on to the next question. “Who was your favorite hockey player when you were a kid?”

“Oh, Zachary Goldman, for sure. I grew up around here and my parents used to take me to Cardinals game.”

Alex looks up from the applications he was going through again, apparently no longer in the mood to pretend that he isn’t interested. He shoves the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and scoots closer to Ashley so he can see her phone.

“What’s more important to you,” Connor says, “scoring a goal or winning a game?”

“Winning a game,” Alex whispers.

Nick, in the video, also replies right away. “Winning a game.”

Alex huffs. “He’s good.”

Ashley doesn’t ask him what he means by that. She learned not to ask Alex questions about Nick Rivera a long time ago.

“What’s your pregame meal?” Nick asks.

“Chicken and pasta,” Connor replies. “Can you play any instruments?”

“Not well enough,” Nick says. “How do you feel about pineapple on pizza?”

Connor laughs. “Why am I getting all the food questions?”

“Apparently people think you’re an expert,” Nick says and smiles, and that one looks a billion times more genuine than the one before did.

“I’m not sure if I should be impressed or offended.” Connor shakes his head. “Anyway, I’m personally not a fan of pineapple in general.” He fishes the next question out of the bowl. “Do you have any pets?”

“No,” Nick says and for a moment it seems like he’s going to leave it at that, but then he adds, “I’ve been thinking about getting a dog, though.”

The door opens and Finn comes marching inside with a huge cup of coffee in hand. Ashley pauses the video. “Hey, how’s it going?”

Finn glares at her. “Don’t.”

“It’s past noon, how are you still so grumpy?” Ashley asks. Finn is one of their figure skating instructors. He only teaches private lessons in the afternoon and oversees the public skates in the morning. He teaches dance classes at the gym, too. And Glaring 101, of course.

“Children,” Finn only says. “They lie on the ice for shits and giggles and then all the other kids do it too, and suddenly I have to peel twenty kids off the ice. Who even goes skating in the middle of summer?”

“Hey,” Alex says, “we do not complain about people who go skating in the middle of summer. We do not complain about people who pay money. They make sure I can pay you.”

Finn sighs and rolls his eyes. “Fine. I love the children who think that lying on the ice is more fun than skating.”

“Good.”

“What are you guys looking at?”

“Oh, just a video,” Ashley says. “You know, the new guys on the Cardinals are–”

“Shit, is that Nick Rivera? He’s, like, the hottest guy on the planet.”

“He plays for the Cardinals now,” Alex says under his breath.

“Honestly,” Finn says and let out a dreamy sigh, “I don’t want to be that person, but look at his thighs. He could murder me with those thighs. I’d let him. I’d write him a thank you note from the grave.”

Ashley snorts. “I mean, objectively speaking, he is pretty attractive.”

Alex rolls his eyes.

“Who’s the other one?” Finn asks. “I should pay more attention to hockey. I just know Roy and Hellström, but that’s just because the Cardinals plaster their faces everywhere. And why wouldn’t they? Those two are hot, too. I mean, Roy is hot in a rugged sort of way. And Hellström is hot in a Swedish sort of way.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at Finn. “How is  _Swedish_  a way to be hot?”

“Well, look at him and you’ll understand. Ash, back me up here.”

“He’s blond and gorgeous,” Ashley says with a shrug. “And ripped.”

Finn nods. “True. So, who’s the cutie?”

“The…” Alex coughs. “The cutie?”

“That’s Connor Walden, he’s currently staying in Alex’s guest room,” Ashley says.

“For real?”

“Yeah, and he’s coming by later,” Alex says.

“Well, do tell him to say hello,” Finn says with a wink. He wanders over to the fridge and pulls out a Tupperware container full of pasta. He grabs a fork and shovels some of it into his mouth, then he stands behind Ashley. “Go on, I wanna see, too.”

Ashley hits play and they watch the rest of the video together, Finn whispering behind her. It’s clearly pissing Alex off that Finn is so into Nick. When Finn lets out yet another sigh, accompanied by a quiet, “ _Thighs_ ,” Alex gets up and grabs his applications. “I’ll be in the office.”

“Jeez, what’s his beef with Nick Rivera?”

“I’m not sure,” Ashley says. It’s not a lie. She really doesn’t know, not for sure, and she also won’t discuss Alex’s life with Finn. Finn knows more about Alex’s past than most people around here do, but it’d still feel too personal.

“Huh,” Finn says. “Anyway, I gotta get back downstairs, I’ll see you on the ice.”

Ashley smiles and nods.

Not for the first time, she wonders if she should ask Alex if there’s anything he wants to talk about. Alex did go to therapy after his accident, and he sometimes still goes, he’s good about that, he wants to be okay, but sometimes she feels like a bad friend for never offering to listen.

She doesn’t want to be nosy and she keeps telling herself that Alex would come to her if there was something he wanted to share with her, then again, maybe he thinks she wouldn’t care.

She’ll ask Jamie. She won’t mention any names, but Jamie always knows what to do.

Ashley quickly finishes her lunch – she’s teaching the summer figure skating camp in twenty minutes and she wants to be the first one on the ice. Finn had a point when he complained about the kids. They really have too many bad ideas when they’re left unsupervised for longer than two seconds, and the words  _don’t step on the ice when there’s no coach present_  have absolutely no meaning to them.

She closes Twitter, only to open it again a moment later. She goes to Nick Rivera’s account and reads through his tweets. It’s mostly retweets, charity stuff, and a reply to a teammate here and there. Nothing too interesting.

She hits  _follow_ anyway.


	8. home, Chapter 2.4

**home**

 

**Chapter 2.4**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Catch our newcomers @ConnorWaldo and @NickRivera13 on the Steve&Evan Show at 10 AM today. Listen here: ctsportsradio.com/live/124u2s

*

“You wanna go somewhere for lunch?” Nick asks. He barely slept last night, so he’s actually dying to go back to his hotel and take a nap, preferably one that’ll last until tomorrow morning.

This thing at the radio wasn’t the typical team promotion stuff that he’s used to from the Lions. He’s one of the new guys now. People are interested. They ask questions he doesn’t know how to answer, so he tries not to answer them at all. He’s good at that, he’s perfected it, saying things without really saying anything at all. It’s easier this way, because he’ll never be in a position where he says something that could be used against him. It’s self-defense, in a way.  

But this isn’t LA. He can’t be the same Nicolas Rivera that he was on the Lions. This is a different team. He’ll play with different people. This team will expect different things from him.

Nick is one of the new guys now and he’d almost forgotten what that feels like. The last time he was the new kid he was spending his rookie season with the Lions.

He knows that there’ll be more new guys. After the draft. When free agency starts. Maybe the Cardinals will even make some moves right before the start of the season. But  for now there’s only Connor Walden and he makes Nick feel safe. Not because he knew him before, but because Connor knows how to be the new guy, and it can’t hurt to build a relationship with his teammates right from the start.

Nick takes this seriously. He has to. He got traded, and when a team trades you, it generally means that the team didn’t want you anymore for whatever reason. Maybe that was Nick’s own fault, but he intends to prove to the Cardinals that he’s an asset, and that he’s worth it. He wants them to be the winner in this trade.

He wants to show the Lions that he would have been worth the trouble.

The Cardinals’ management don’t know that he had issues with the Lions’ management. He had a meeting with them yesterday and they told him how glad they are to have him on the team and that they’re looking forward to getting to know him better. Nick smiled and nodded along and didn’t say a word to contradict them or to make them feel like trading for him was a mistake.

Nobody asked what went wrong with the Lions. Nick is glad that they didn’t.

When he and Connor did that radio show today, things weren’t that easy. The hosts didn’t outright ask him why the Lions traded him, but they asked what he was hoping would be different in Connecticut, and if he’d met the coaches and trainers yet and if he thought they’d see eye to eye. Nick did his best to make every answer to those questions as neutral and as boring as possible.

Connor knew exactly what was going on. He didn’t get to say as much as Nick did, and Nick actually feels bad, because most of the attention was on him and Connor’s replies mostly went uncommented and seemed secondary to the hosts. They were constantly waiting for Nick to mess up and accidentally tell the truth, but Nick has spent a lot of time teaching himself to keep his expression neutral, not to give anything away, to keep his secrets without letting on that he has any secrets at all. Connor knew what he was doing. He shot him a sidelong glance every time one of the hosts asked a question that was clearly designed to get Nick to talk shit about his former team without being too obvious about it.

Nick can handle himself, though.

And Connor can, too. He’s good with the media, and not in the way Nick is. Where Nick does his best to not even hint at what he’s really thinking, Connor grins and cracks jokes. He still chooses his words carefully, Nick can tell, but all the joking distracts from it. Connor is so good at it that Nick can’t even tell if it’s all fake. And, hey, maybe Connor doesn’t have to fake his smiles. Maybe they’re real.

Nick almost wants to ask him to teach him how he does that.

Connor Walden is the kind of guy you want on your team, not because he’s so incredibly effective on the ice, but because he’s a gem to have in the locker room. Not that Connor is a bad hockey player. Nick kept up with Connor’s career whenever he could, and sometimes they even ended up on opposite sides of the ice together. In Nick’s  humble opinion, Connor just wasn’t given the chances he deserved.

In any case, Nick is glad that Connor is absolutely willing to put up with his prolonged silences. When they waited for their interview to start, Nick was quiet, because he gets quiet when he’s nervous, and Connor told him about the time he got traded to Colorado and his parents’ neighbor told him the news while he was sitting in a kiddie pool with his cousin’s son.

Connor ended the story with, “Sorry, I’m babbling. I’m kinda nervous, to be honest, aren’t you nervous?”

“A little,” Nick said, which was the understatement of the year. He’s never been good at talking about his feelings, not even when it’s something trivial like being nervous about being on a new team and having to talk about it on the radio. “Feel free to, uh, keep babbling.”

Connor grinned and kept talking. Nick doesn’t even remember what else he told him, but by the time they sat down for their interview, Nick felt calm for the first time in forever, because sure, he welcomed this trade, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t terrified about ruining things all over again. No matter how good he is, no matter how many goals he scores, how many points he racks up, there’ll always be that quiet nagging voice, and that voice reminds him that he might not be this good forever, that one day there might come a point where no team will want him. And what is he going to do then?

Connor took all of that away for a few moments, so Nick wouldn’t mind hanging out with him a little while longer. Back in LA, he did go out with his teammates, but he was still more the guy everyone came to for hockey advice and who stuck around after practice, not the guy who initiated outings and made dinner plans with people. He tagged along often enough, but sometimes he just wanted to sit on his couch and read a book.

When Connor doesn’t agree to go out for lunch right away, looking unsure, Nick says, “My treat.” He’s not sure why he thinks that it’ll make a difference.

“I actually already have plans,” Connor says, biting his lip. “Sorry, man. Are you sticking around for a few more days? I could do lunch or dinner tomorrow.”

Of course he has plans. His parents still live in Cedar Mills, and Nick is guessing that the rest of Connor’s family lives within a twenty-mile radius of Hartford. Nick doesn’t catch himself being jealous often, but he does wish that there was still someone around here who might make home feel a little more like… well,  _home_. Connor’s presence reminds him of growing up here, of playing hockey in the street with worn-out gear, chasing each other and tackling each other on the front lawn of Connor’s parents’ house.

“Yeah, tomorrow’s fine,” Nick says. “I’ll be around until Monday.” Then he’s flying to Virginia, and from there he’s taking his parents to Puerto Rico. He actually meant to spend his few days in Connecticut meeting the Cardinals’ management and maybe a few new teammates, but then he tried to find himself a real estate agent and she was willing to show him a few places this weekend before he’ll drop off the grid for a couple of weeks.

“Cool,” Connor says and gives him a pat on the back. “I’ll text you, all right?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Nick goes back to his hotel and sleeps until it’s time for dinner. During the off-season he lets go of his routine for a few weeks, only he’s reached a point where he should be easing back into it. Since the Lions didn’t clinch a playoff spot, he’s had an excruciatingly long off-season anyway; he’s had enough time to be a slob.

Now that sounds like he spent several weeks lying on his couch, eating junk food, watching TV. That’s not quite how it went. He went to every single children’s hospital in LA and most of the time a few of his teammates joined him. He still went on a run every day. Okay.  _Almost_  every day. He taught a free one-week hockey camp. He did things. It still felt like he was doing nothing, though.

The next evening, he has dinner with Connor in a hole-in-the-wall type of Italian restaurant that must have been an insider tip. Connor confirms it when he says, “Josh told me about this place, apparently the guys come here a lot.”

“You asked Yoshi for restaurant tips?”

Connor shrugs and takes a huge bite of his pizza. “He offered.”

Nick hums. “He’s a great guy.” He scrapes together what’s left of his pasta. Now that he has Connor here and there’s no one from management around and not a single reporter is asking them questions, he could talk about things he wouldn’t mention if there was anyone else around. He trusts Connor. He’s not sure if he’d trust him with every single secret he’s ever had, but he trusts him enough to tell him things he wouldn’t tell just anyone.

Still, up until now, they’ve only talked about the Hawks’ playoff run, and about how good their food is, and the Cardinals’ current roster. Just typical hockey player talk.

“Connor,” Nick says. Nothing risky.

He was trying to go for casual, but something in his voice has Connor freezing with his last slice of pizza halfway to his mouth. “Yeah?” Connor says.

“Have you looked around for a place to live yet?” Nick asks. It’s not what he meant to say, but it’s the first thing that came to his mind when he chickened out. Possibly, he doesn’t trust Connor quite as much as he thought. Or he’s even worse at talking about what’s bothering him than he thought.

“Uhhh…” Connor shrugs. “Not really. Have you?”

“Yeah, I’ve looked at a couple of places.”

“Seen anything you liked?”

“There was this one place that was pretty much exactly what I was looking for…” Nick trails off. Most of the places he looked at earlier today were nice enough. He could see himself living in all of them and he’s not really sure what’s holding him back from saying yes to one of them.

Connor grins. “What’s wrong with it?”

“The one I liked best is in Cedar Mills,” Nick says. It was sort of funny, because he hadn’t mentioned to Alyssa, his real estate agent, that he actually grew up in Cedar Mills, just in a different, more middle-class kind of neighborhood.

“There’s a rink not too far from here,” Alyssa said. “You said you’re a hockey player, right?”

“Right.”

“My brother works at that rink, so if you ever want private ice time or anything…”

“Yeah, uh thanks,” Nick said. He actually has enough money to buy himself private ice time; he doesn’t need connections, but he appreciates it nonetheless. Anyway, he might have connections himself. “The Goldmans still own it, right?”

“They do,” Alyssa said, waving him off. “Of course you’d know them. Zach Goldman. Even I have heard of him and I’m not much of a hockey buff.”

Yes, Nick remembers Zach Goldman. He remembers how much pressure he put on Alex to become a second Zach Goldman, even though his son wanted nothing more than to play his own game and make his own choices. Alex never wanted to be the kind of player that his dad saw in him. That doesn’t mean that Zach Goldman is a bad guy. He was a hockey god. The team he coaches loves him. But maybe he won’t be winning awards for being a good father any time soon.

Maybe Nick will pay Alex a visit at some point – certainly not this weekend – although he’s not sure if Alex will want to see him.

“And what’s wrong with Cedar Mills?” Connor asks.

“Nothing, it’s just… I grew up there.”

“Yeah, same.” Connor finishes his pizza in two bites. “I’m pretty sure that Grenier also lives in the Mills. Yoshi mentioned that. It’s, what, fifteen minutes to the Cardinals’ practice rink? That’s not too bad.”

Nick nods. “Just feels weird. Moving back home.”

“Kinda does, yeah,” Connor says.

“How are your parents?” Nick asks, remembering too late that Connor’s parents weren’t always role models when it came to their parenting skills either.

“They’re fine,” Connor replies, but the face he’s making tells Nick everything he needs to know.  _Fine_ , in this case, probably means that they’re healthy, or at least still alive, not that they’re arguing any less than they used to. “I’m staying with a friend, so I don’t have to listen to their bickering.”

Bickering. That’s one way to describe it. “Oh, that’s nice.” Is that a good thing to say?  _It’s nice that you’re staying with a friend because your parents are exhausting to be around_. Probably not the best thing he could have said. “I mean…”

“Yeah,” Connor says, “I know.”

Nick somehow managed to make this awkward. He does have people skills, but in some situations they’re not as advanced as he’d like them to be. He shouldn’t have brought up Connor’s parents in the first place. He tries to change the subject by telling Connor about his trip to Puerto Rico and, slowly, a smile reappears on Connor’s face.

They’re both laughing when they leave the restaurant and Nick almost wants to ask Connor if he wants to move in with him. The house he looked at in Cedar Mills has three bedrooms; he’d have enough room. He’s never been great at living with other people, though. He’s not the kind of guy who adopts rookies. He’s the kind of guy who adopts AHL call-ups, because he doesn’t mind having someone around for a while, but also doesn’t mind having his house to himself. The guys who get called up usually only stay for a few days, a few weeks, then they leave again. It’s different with rookies and roommates. They usually stick around all season.

So they part ways without any offers on Nick’s part. Connor gives him a hug before he wanders off to his rental car and says, “Let me know when you’re back in town, yeah?”

Nick promises that he will. That night he sleeps better than he has in weeks knowing that no matter what happens, he’ll at least have a friend on the team.


	9. home, Chapter 2.5

**home**

 

**Chapter 2.5**

 

*****

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Meet @ConnorWaldo at Smoothie Star in South Springs between 3-4 PM today. Show up in #Cardinals gear for a chance to win pre-season tickets!

|

_replying to_   **ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

And, yes, @ConnorWaldo will also take selfies with you even if you don’t show up in Cardinals red. He’s nice like that.

*****

When Alex comes home from the rink on Sunday night, Byron darts into the house, not waiting for Alex to keep up. Alex’s best guess is that  _someone_  has food and he knows that the same someone has been sneaking Byron food during the last couple of days, because Connor asked him the other day if there’s anything Byron wasn’t allowed to eat and if they were all going to die if he gave him a piece of his bacon.

Byron loves Connor, and it’s safe to say the feeling is mutual. Whenever they come home and Connor is around, it’s Cuddle Time With Byron.

“Ohh, there’s the best boy. Who’s the best boy, you ask?” Connor says in the living room. “It’s  _you_. Yes, you’re the best boy.”

Alex laughs quietly and kicks off his shoes by the door – his mother would be appalled if she saw the shoe pile that he’s not in the mood to clean up. Connor has been adding to it as well and Alex can’t say that he minds. It makes the house seem more like a home and less like the perfect, spotless and untouched abode it used to be when he was a kid.

When his parents moved away and it was just him in the house for the first time, it seemed even bigger than before.

Alex finds Connor in the living room with a massive pizza, a beer, and Byron already making please-give-food eyes at him, tail wagging. “Hey,” Alex says and flops down next to him on the couch.

“You’re back early,” Connor says. “How’s the rink?”

“Still standing. Ashley is locking up tonight. She’s still there, she’s organizing some figure skating competition for the beginners. You know, an  _everybody wins something_  competition.”

“I like those,” Connor says. “I  _miss_  those.”

Alex laughs.

“I wish there were  _You Survived Another Year In The NHL_  awards.” Connor clears his throat. “I mean…” Connor persistently stares at the TV where some baseball game is on. He’s been tiptoeing around any sort of hockey topic and Alex sees what he’s doing, but Alex literally works at a rink where big and small hockey players come and go pretty much on a daily basis.

“Waldo…” Alex says.

Connor still won’t look at him. “Yeah?”

“I’m fine. You know that, right?” Alex says. Okay, maybe he isn’t  _fine_ , but he can handle this. All of this. “It’s okay if you want to talk about hockey. Or if you want to go to the rink. Or if you want to watch games. All of that is perfectly okay.” He lets out a small sigh. “It’s been five years.”

“Okay,” Connor says, voice quiet.

“You don’t need to…” Alex trails off. It’s his own fault that Connor thinks that he doesn’t want anything to do with hockey. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to your game last year.”

“It’s fine. I mean, I figured you wouldn’t want to, but I also didn’t want you to feel like I didn’t want you there. It was weird. For me. And I guess for you, too. But, seriously, it’s fine.”

“No, it’s not fine,” Alex says. “You’re my friend and you were the first one who called me at the hospital and I didn’t even call you back. And I think I’m gonna have to call my therapist and tell her that I finally said this to you, because I’ve been wanting to say it for a while and then… well, it’s been five years.”

“So,” Connor says, “is there a chance you’ll come to one of my games in Hartford?”

“Yeah, I think we can arrange that.”

“Good. It’s nice to have a friend in the crowd.”

Alex smiles. “Yeah, it really is.”

Connor absent-mindedly pets Byron’s head, then he looks up. “Do you miss it?”

“Yeah, of course I do,” Alex says. “I don’t think there’s anything that could replace being on the ice and actually playing. My dad tried to get me into coaching, but it’d feel like a compromise. Working at the rink… I chose that. It’s not what I wanted, but at least I’m not just doing it to please my dad.”

“Your dad’s such a piece of work,” Connor says. He pushes his pizza carton closer to Alex. “You want some? I’m eating way too much pizza these days.”

“Thanks.” Alex takes a slice. “Anyway, no need to, uh, hold back on the hockey stuff. I’m not gonna lie, right after the accident…” He scrunches up his nose. He still doesn’t like talking about it, but he feels like he owes Connor this much. “I didn’t want to hear anything about hockey, when they told me I wouldn’t be able to play anymore, it was… bad. And I still have days when it just sort of hits me all over again that this wasn’t part of the plan, but I’m all grown up, I can tell you if I don’t want to talk about it. Seriously.”

Connor smiles at him and reaches out to give him a quick one-armed hug. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Alex doesn’t know what to say to that, so he only nods and lets himself be hugged.

They watch baseball for a while, mumbling comments here and there. Alex gets himself a beer and brings another one for Connor and catches himself thinking that he could get used to this. He could get used to having someone around. He’s thought about renting out one of the rooms upstairs, but he doesn’t want someone he doesn’t know at all in the house. Anyway, it’s not  _his_ house. He just lives here.

Connor probably wants his own place. Alex still asks him where he’s going from here. “So, are you going anywhere nice and sunny before the season starts?”

“Nah, I mean I already went to the Bahamas with some of the guys after we lost in the second round, so I’ll just go back to Denver and pack up the rest of my stuff so Shane can find himself another roommate.”

“Right,” Alex says.

“You know, Nick has already found himself a house. He sent me a text earlier. It’s in the Mills.”

“Oh, did he…” Alex knows that he doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic, but Nick Rivera just doesn’t provoke the most enthusiastic reactions from him in general. He doesn’t want Connor to think that something’s up, so he puts on a pleasant face and adds, “Good for him.”

The Mills are practically right around the corner from his place. There’s the actual mill between his house and that neighborhood, but he’s walked there through the woods with Byron a couple of times. There are some hiking trails nearby and one of them runs right past the actual mill and into the Mills, a neighborhood full of sort of expensive and extremely expensive houses. It’s probably the sort of place where a player like Nick Rivera would want to live.

Connor shoots him a look, like he can sense that he’s being fake happy about Nick finding a house in the Mills, but he doesn’t call him out on it, so maybe Alex was just imagining things. “Why do you think they traded him?” Connor asks.

Alex wasn’t expecting that one. He’s thought about it, of course, but he won’t pretend to understand that he knows what’s going on in Joe Davis’s mind. It probably has a lot to do with cap space. The Lions will want to re-sign a couple of players this off-season and with Nick out of the picture, they have a pretty good chance to keep a bunch of guys in the lineup. Ultimately, he can only speculate, though. “I don’t know.”

“It just seems weird. He’s so good. Like, why would let someone like that go? I understand why the Hawks traded me, but why would you trade the guy who’s been racking up numbers consistently for years?”

“They didn’t make the playoffs, though. A guy who can score isn’t worth much when the rest of the team doesn’t work smoothly.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you trade someone else? Like, literally anyone else? I mean, I’ve read all kinds of weird shit on the internet, like that he has a drug problem, but… he doesn’t. Honestly, that’s total bullshit.”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“What, like, ‘Hey Rivs, do you have a drug problem by any chance?’ That’s not gonna go over well.”

“No, not if he has a drug problem. Just… if he has any idea why they traded him,” Alex says. “The thing is, the Lions don’t have too many draft picks the next two years and they got a first rounder for Rivera, plus Cody Jackson, who’s a really decent D-man. It makes sense for them and maybe it was the only good deal anyone would make them.”

Connor hums. “He’s such a nice guy, you know? Nick. He doesn’t brag, even though he’s fucking incredible.”

It seems that Connor has been holding back on the hockey talk a lot. Their conversation drifts from Nick Rivera to the moves the Eagles have been making, and Connor hesitates for just a moment, probably remembering that the Eagles were the team that drafted Alex, before he barrels on and tells him about that one time the Eagles’ backup goalie Charlie Hanson kept him from skating straight into the Eagles’ net. “He caught me, like I was the puck.”

“On a different team, Hanson would probably a starting goalie, honestly,” Alex says. It’s nice to talk about hockey. Connor doesn’t have any ulterior motives like his dad does. Sometimes he’ll talk about trades and numbers with Ashley and she at least knows what’s been going on, but it’s different to talk to someone who’s actually played against all of those guys.

They forget about baseball. They actually forget that the TV is on at all. They finish the pizza, drink another beer each, and Byron dozes next to the couch and halfway through a conversation about the abysmal season that the Wolves had, Connor says, “Hey, uh… off-topic, but can I ask you something?”

“Yeah?”

“Like, just hypothetically… How much would you charge for that room upstairs?”

“How much would I charge?”

“Like, if you were willing to rent it out, how much would you charge?”

Alex grins. “We could just split the phone bill. And utilities.”

“So, you wouldn’t mind if I stayed?”

“I told you,” Alex replies, “you can stay for as long as you want.”

Connor leans back with a huge grin on his face.

Alex grins back at him. Maybe you don’t go and find roommates. Maybe sometimes the roommates find you.


	10. visits, Chapter 3.1

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.1**

 

*****

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Hockey, where are you?

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I guess I’ll just have to look at pictures of Josh Roy fishing in the meantime.

*****

At work, Nadira has to pretend that she loves all sports equally, but there’s a reason she covered hockey at her last job. There’s nothing quite like it, nothing to replace it during the offseason.

She covered all sorts of sports-related events during the last couple of weeks, including a fun run and a softball fundraiser. She covers the most local of local sports. Nadira gets the jobs that no one else wants to do, which is understandable because she’s new around here, but she’d love to write about something with a little more substance. Brad spends all his time at baseball games and gives everything else that’s remotely fun to Don. Brad is in charge of sports at the  _Gazette_  and he treats Nadi like it’s literally her first day on the job.

She was willing to put up with it on her first day when the guys were only showing her the ropes, but their behavior has quickly turned from helpful to condescending.

Nadira is the only woman who’s writing for the sports section. She’s used to being outnumbered by condescending douchebags, but it would be easier if there was another lady she could share an eye-roll with here and there. She’ll have put up with Brad and Don, and their sports journalist clones, on her own, though.

Last Friday, Brad came up to her desk, a borderline patronizing smile on his face. “Nadira,” he said, his smile growing ever broader. It’s honestly astonishing that he’s been calling her by her actual name all this time. Don tried to call her Nadia until she offered to write her name down for him if his memory is that bad. He didn’t have trouble remembering her name anymore after that.

“Brad,” Nadira said, faking a smile when she spotted him. “What can I do for you? The story about the Tennis Club’s anniversary is almost done.”

“Great work, Nadira.” Brad leaned down, showing off those pearly whites. “I have a real treat for you. Monday morning. I know you’re working tomorrow and I said you could come in late on Monday, but I think you’re really going to like this. You used to cover hockey, right? I mean, I’ve been covering the Cardinals for years, you won’t find a bigger hockey fan around here, honestly, but I was thinking you might want this one. You’ve been doing great.”

“Oh?” Nadira said. She wasn’t going to say yes to it just yet. She’d quickly learned to thoroughly mistrust Brad and she was expecting that he’d send her somewhere to write a teensy article about a charity street hockey game. Not that she doesn’t like and support charity street hockey games, but maybe she wouldn’t necessarily give up her free Monday morning for that.

“There’ve been some new signings recently, I’m sure you’ve heard,” Brad said. “That Rivera deal was…” He whistled. “Anyway… We’re in the middle of the off-season, but the women’s team in Hartford signed a new goalie a couple of weeks ago and she was off teaching some summer hockey school in Boston, but she’s in town now and you could interview her on Monday morning.”

Nadira grins. “I’d love to do that interview, actually.”

Brad did blink at her in surprise because he’s clearly one of those people who feel like women’s hockey isn’t  _proper_  hockey and was only willing to give her this story because he wasn’t feeling like doing it himself. “Wonderful. If you want to go over questions or anything… you know where to find me. I’ll email you the details.”

“Thanks, Brad,” Nadira said. She didn’t add,  _I know how interviews work, thank you very much_.

Complaining about Brad has become a daily occurrence, because she either has breakfast or dinner, or sometimes both, with her parents. In the beginning, she tries not to talk about work too much, because when she was still in New York, she didn’t give them daily updates on her job either. But there wasn’t a Brad in New York. Granted, there were other versions of Brad, but none of them were quite as exasperating as the  _Hartford Gazette_ ’s Brad.

She complains about Brad over lunch on Sunday as well, just for the hell of it, even though she’s currently enjoying a blissful Brad-less day.

After lunch she quietly sneaks away with a book. Her mom has the greatest rocking chair ever on the front porch and Nadira would love it even more if it was in the back where she doesn’t have half of the neighborhood watching her. She can already see the curtains moving, even though everyone around here is very well aware that she’s returned home. They always have a huge party at the end of the street on the 4th of July and Nadira hasn’t been around for it ever since she graduated college. When she showed up this year, people of course asked her all kinds of invasive questions and she started to regret that she’d gone at all about two minutes after she’d arrived.

She spent pretty much all day texting Dee, who was invited to some huge party at a friend’s beach house, and Hayley and Jane, who were her next door neighbors in New York and were having an illegal picnic on the rooftop of the building, and Sarah, who was in Boston, celebrating with some of her former teammates. Nadira received a lot of pictures of smiley hockey players that day. Her birthday the next day was more of the same.

Catching up with Sarah a few weeks ago gave her hope that being back home might not be so horrible after all, but then Sarah left for Boston and Nadira was once again friend-less. It’s not like she wants to hang out with Brad and Don after work. Maybe she should find herself a book club, but she also doesn’t feel like hanging out with the Cedar Mill housewives. They have too much to say about things that are none of their business. And, sure, Nadira has caught herself gossiping on occasion, but there are different kinds of gossip. There’s the happy  _hey, have you heard that so-and-so who went to high school with us is having a baby_  kind of gossip, and then there’s those vicious whispers, the judgmental kind of gossip that Nadira doesn’t want any part of.

She should probably spend more time in Hartford after work. Actually, she should move to Hartford. Period. Cedar Mills is starting to gnaw at her soul. Although it’s probably just the fact that she’s still living with her parents.

Nadira jumps back to the top of the page she’s been trying to read for the past five minutes. It seems that she can’t concentrate on anything today.

Admittedly, she’s a little nervous about her interview with Sarah tomorrow, mostly because the people she usually interviewed were people she’d never met before. It’s different with Sarah. They know each other and that changes things. Nadira has written down all of her questions, she’s as prepared as she can be, but she’s so excited about this and if the interview is to Brad’s satisfaction, he might let her cover more women’s hockey stories, since he clearly isn’t too keen on doing it himself. So this is really more than just one single interview; it’s an opportunity. It’s possibly a step away from all the stuff that no one else wants to cover and a step towards something she’ll actually enjoy. She doesn’t mind if she still has to write about fun runs and whatnot when she has hockey stories to look forward to as well.

Nadira sighs. She once again goes back to the top of the page and gets distracted again about a second later when she sees Ashley O’Leary coming up the street with a black lab that Nadira knows belongs to Ashley’s parents who live down the street.

Nadira puts down her book and waves at her. She knew it was only a matter of time until she ran into Ashley. She still lives in Cedar Mills and when Nadira talked to Ashley’s mom the other day it sounded like Ashley does visit her parents often enough.

Ashley grins at her and comes over to the Patels’ porch. “Hey, Nadi! My mom said you were back in town.”

“Yep,” Nadira says and stands up to meet her halfway on the stairs.

Ashley gives her a hug without being awkward about it. “It’s so good to see you. How have you been?”

“Oh, you know…” She shrugs. Moving back home, working a job she isn’t sure she actually likes. That kind of thing. “How about you?”

“Pretty good,” Ashley says. “Still coaching figure skaters. And I have three cats and a fiancé.”

Nadira has heard about that because her parents, too, know how to gossip. Well, they didn’t tell her about the cats, just about the fiancé. “Sounds like you’re living the life. And you’re engaged to  _Jamie_.”

“I  _know_ ,” Ashley squeals.

Nadira watched the Jamie Sullivan and Ashley O’Leary Love Story develop in real time when they were in high school. The two of them started dating when they were fifteen – Jamie used to work at the rink, selling soda and hot dogs, and Ashley practically lived at the rink back then. Nadira did, too, but she was there to watch the Vikings’ games, not to skate. Sometimes she’d watch Ashley practice and then they’d watch a game together. By that time they didn’t really play street hockey with the guys anymore. Ashley didn’t have much time for it anymore either.

In any case, there’s most likely never been a happier or more adorable couple than Ashley and Jamie, and if someone had told Nadira that those two were going to get married ten years ago, she would have believed it, no questions asked.

“When’s the wedding?” Nadira asks.

“Next summer,” Ashley replies. “He proposed earlier this year and I really want a summer wedding, but this year wouldn’t have worked out, so…” She shrugs. “I really don’t mind, I’m not in a rush.”

“You’re not?”

“That made it sound like I don’t actually want to get married.” Ashley scrunches up her nose. Her whole face is covered with freckles. “I do. And we’ve been dating for so long, well, most people think it’s about time, but we’re happy whether we’re married or not. I guess that’s why it was never that big of a deal and now I’m supposed to plan this wedding and… I’m really not the most organized person. I don’t know why people expect that I have a whole folder full of wedding ideas stashed away somewhere.”

“Are we supposed to have a folder like that?”

“According to Jamie’s mom we are.”

“Yikes, my entire life is a failure,” Nadira says. It’s actually a little too true. She feels like the biggest failure on the planet and two seconds ago it was mostly related to her job, but now she’s starting to feel like she should extend that feeling of having failed entirely to her love life as well.

Ashley smirks. “I feel you.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll–” Nadira squeaks when something cold touches her nose. The O’Learys’ pup is looking up at her, tail wagging. “Oh, someone’s feeling ignored.” Nadira pets his head. “What’s his name again?”

“It’s Roy,” Ashley says. “He’s named after Joshua Roy, because of course my dad would name his dog after a hockey player.”

“Of course,” Nadira says. “What a sweet boy.”

“Yeah, he’s such a wuss, though. My parents can’t take him to my house because he’s scared of the cats.”

“Aw, I bet the cats are super cute,” Nadira says. She always wanted a cat when she was a kid. Or a dog. Or a pony. She wouldn’t have been picky, honestly.

“They have an Instagram if you’re interested.”

“Oh, I’m  _very_  interested.”

“Or,” Ashley smiles brightly, “if you’d like to meet them, feel free to come over. I’ll tell you about all the wedding things I can’t handle and you can tell me about… whatever you want. What are you doing on Friday night?”

Well, up until now Nadira’s plans for Friday included the basement, a lot of ice cream and the most ridiculous romcom she can find. Hanging out with Ashley and a bunch of cats sounds a lot better to her, though. “Uh… nothing?”

“You should come to my place. I’ll make dinner and we can have a girls’ night. Jamie is going to the movies with people who won’t be up all night after watching a horror movie.”

“Not a fan of scary movies, huh?”

“Not really, no,” Ashley says. “So, what do you think?”

“Sounds great.

Ashley beams at her. “I live over on Maple now, number 485. Come by around seven?”

“Sure, yeah.”

Nadira already knows that the prospect of hanging out with an old friend will get her through the entire week. There’s nothing Brad can do to ruin this for her.


	11. visits, Chapter 3.2

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.2**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

this is my new friend Byron and he wants you to know that he’s a good boy instagram.com/p/ipAKWEn

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

why didn’t you get a dog while we were still living together #rude

|

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

it’s my new roomie’s dog so the question is why didn’t you get a dog while we were still living together??

*

“Byron? Come on, buddy, we gotta leave.”

Byron doesn’t move an inch. “You’re a lazy shit,” Connor says to him and pats his head in passing.

“Byron?” Alex shouts again.

“He’s up here!” Connor opens the door in a vain attempt to convince Byron to get a move on, but Byron only wags his tail and stays in Connor’s bed.

Alex appears in the doorway, one of his shoes untied and a splotch of pancake batter on his glasses. When Connor came back from his run earlier, Alex was already awake even though he’s only now leaving for the rink. He was in the kitchen, dressed, his hair still damp, flipping pancakes. Byron was lying in wait as always.

Asking Alex if he could move in was the best decision Connor has ever made. It’s not just because of the pancakes.

To guys like Nick it makes sense to buy a house. If his performance doesn’t get about a billion times worse, the Cardinals will definitely want to keep him around – unless whatever convinced the Lions to trade him will be an issue for the Cardinals as well.

Connor still hasn’t asked him what was up with the Lions. Maybe it was just a move that was made to shake up the team, maybe it was about cap space, maybe they found Nick difficult to work with, but it doesn’t make much sense to Connor. Nick is back in town now and they went out for dinner with a couple of their new teammates the other day. They’ll start training together, too. Connor honestly finds Nick really pleasant to be around. Nick doesn’t say much and when he does say something it’s mostly about hockey, but Connor can work with that.

Alex has some sort of beef with Nick, but will talk about him whenever Connor brings him up, so it’s more like a grudge and less like an ongoing feud. Connor has been thinking about asking Nick about that, too, because asking Alex seems like the worst idea of all time.

Even though Alex keeps insisting that he’s fine – and Connor doesn’t doubt that he is – there are some things he’d rather not mention. Some things are meant to stay in the past. And some other things are none of his business. The thing is, Nick doesn’t seem like the kind of person to hold grudges, so maybe he doesn’t even know what Alex’s problem is. Alex, on the other hand, is probably still mad at a guy who kicked him in the shin in fifth grade gym class.

“Byron,” Alex says. “Come on. Time for work. The kids are playing this morning and they’re gonna be really happy if you’re there to say hello to them.”

Byron definitely has no idea what Alex is saying to him, but he still jumps out of Connor’s bed, tail wagging like Alex mentioned the words  _food_  and  _walk_  and  _treat_  in the same sentence.

“He sort of just followed me after I got out of the bathroom,” Connor says.

“Yeah, he does that. He likes beds. He’s not allowed in mine, so you’re his best friend now.” Alex grins down at Byron. “Isn’t that right?”

“Aw, come on, you’re still the one who gives him food.”

Byron immediately perks up.

“You’re so transparent,” Alex says to Byron.

On his desk, Connor’s phone chimes. He’s been texting Nick, who’s apparently been up since six in the morning. Or at least that was when Nick texted him to ask if he wanted to hang out later. 6:07 AM. Considering that he’s talking to Nick Rivera, it’s possibly safe to assume that Nick got up even earlier. Like, at the asscrack of dawn.

Connor didn’t ask him why the hell he was awake that early. He did say yes to hanging out, though, but he’s still debating whether or not to invite Alex, especially since he actually wanted to go skating tonight and asked Alex for ice time, which is also what he told Nick.

Well. He told Nick that he was going to go skating. Not that he’d go skating at the Goldmans’ rink.

 

**[Nick Rivera]**

_Skating sounds good to me if you want company._

“Is it cool if I bring someone to the rink tonight?” Connor asks. “Like, I haven’t invited anyone yet, but just in case.”

“You’re paying for ice time, you can bring your entire team and their families if you want,” Alex says with a shrug.

Yeah, Connor did insist on paying for an hour of ice time, even though Alex told him that no one uses Rink 2 on Monday evenings since one of their figure skating instructors had to quit for health reasons. Alex is already letting him stay at his house, pretty much for free, and Connor would feel bad if he didn’t at least pay for the time he spends at the rink.

Connor grins. “I’m not bringing the entire team.”

“You know, I’m pretty sure that the guys in the other rink would lose their shit if the Cardinals showed up.”

“Most of the guys aren’t even in town yet,” Connor says. “But if you tell me when the kids are practicing, I could maybe swing by. Or I’ll wait until Yoshi is back in town and bring him, because they’ll probably recognize him… And unless any of them are really into mediocre D-men who just got traded here from Colorado, they probably won’t get too excited.”

“Please, you’re an NHL player, of course they’d get excited.”

Probably not as excited as they’d get about Joshua Roy, but maybe Connor will swing by at some point anyway. “All right, well…”

“I can talk to their coaches and ask them how they feel about visitors,” Alex says. “No pressure, though.”

“Sure, I’ll…” Connor looks down at his phone. “I’ll try to find out if any of the guys might want to join me.”

“Nice,” Alex says. “I really gotta go, but I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yeah, see ya.”

Alex and Byron take off, and Connor can hear Alex mumbling to Byron in his  _you’re such a good boy_  voice as they make their way downstairs. He doesn’t make plans with Nick just yet, because they’re meeting up at the gym with their trainer in an hour anyway. Actually it’s Mike’s trainer and he graciously offered to share him with them, because neither Connor nor Nick are planning on going anywhere for the rest of the summer. They’re only just starting out.

It’s been a weird summer. Getting traded wasn’t even the weirdest thing. It’s something he’s come to expect, being shuffled from team to team, meeting new players, figuring out how he fits into the team. But he spent all this time with Alex and usually, during the summer, Connor either hung out with Shane, or he went on vacation with some of the guys or, when he was still dating Lucy, he spent as much time with her as he could.

They broke up last summer. It was a mutual decision, but Connor still misses her sometimes. Every now and then they’ll still send a few texts back and forth, but talking to her actually just makes him miss her more. She lives in Paris now. It’s always been her dream and he’s so, so glad that she went, that he’s not holding her back, but sometimes he catches himself thinking that they could have still made it work. That’s most likely just wishful thinking, though. They agreed that things wouldn’t work out with Lucy in Paris and him playing in the NHL.

Connor didn’t fight for her. Lucy deserves someone who will.

He tries his best to shake off the thought of her. Being miserable about his ex is not on the agenda today. In any case, he’s glad that he’s not living on his own. He’s never been good at that.

It’s not like he needs someone to be around all the time, it just makes him feel better to know that there’s someone else around. When Alex goes to his room after he gets home from the rink, he doesn’t have to tell Connor that he doesn’t feel like hanging out, but on those days Connor usually ends up with Byron joining him on the couch for head scratches.

Connor didn’t expect that he’d reconnect with Alex like this when he came back home. He didn’t expect that he’d end up hanging out with Ashley O’Leary again. He’s met her fiancé when he and Alex were invited to Ashley and Jamie’s place for their 4th of July party and the people there talked more about baseball than hockey, so Connor remained mostly unnoticed. One of Ashley’s friends did recognize him and asked him if he was looking forward to playing with the Cardinals.

Connor was pretty sure that he remembered him from school. He might have been in Alex’s year. Connor has seen him around at the rink; he’s a figure skating instructor. Ashley found the two of them talking and she came over, wrapped an arm around the guy and said, “Finn, stop flirting with Waldo.”

“We’re just having a pleasant conversation,” Finn said, winked at Connor, and then wandered off to get himself some pie.

It’s one of the most hockey-less summers of his life. Things will be different once the season starts, probably already when training camp starts, but the mere thought of training camp is stressing him out. He doesn’t have a guaranteed roster spot. There’s a chance that the Cardinals will place him on waivers. If they do, he might end up somewhere else entirely. There’s a chance that he won’t be staying in Cedar Mills.

So, yeah, he’s not thinking about training camp. He’ll work hard for the rest of the summer and he’ll do what he can to stay in the lineup. And maybe, every now and then, he’ll remind himself that the Cardinals traded for him because they probably felt like he wouldn’t be completely useless on their team.

When he met with management and talked to Coach Harrison, they told Connor that they could see him playing with Russel, maybe even with Santana. Santana’s previous D-partner, Cody Jackson, went to the LA Lions in exchange for Nick and a first rounder.

Nick is already at the gym when Connor gets there, pulling on his workout clothes in the locker room. Nick is one of those not-super-tall but super-fast guys and his speed is one of his greatest assets. Maybe he’s not the strongest player, isn’t one to slam another guy into the boards, but most of the time it seems like he’s one step ahead of everyone else.

Connor is pretty sure that Nick will end up on the Cardinals’ power play unit with Joshua Roy, especially now that the Cardinals have lost two players in free agency. They also signed one, but they couldn’t pay Paul Stevenson anymore now that they have Nick’s cap hit to consider, so they made him an offer, even though they were probably aware that he wouldn’t take it. Connor wouldn’t say this out loud to anyone, but he’s pretty sure that the Cardinals are better off with Nick in the lineup anyway. Stevenson is a dick.

“Hey,” Connor says. “Is Mikey here yet?”

Nick brushes his hair out of his face and laughs that quiet laugh of his. “Nope.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was expecting,” Connor mumbles. Mike usually shows up five minutes late with a protein shake. “So… you still wanna join me at the rink tonight?”

“Sure. Since you’re staying at Goldie’s, I assume we’re meeting up at his family’s rink?” Nick says.

“Yeah. Meet me there around eight?”

Nick nods and gets stuck in his shirt a moment later.

Connor pretends that he didn’t see and quietly smirks down at his gym bag. It’s nice to get a reminder every now and then that even Nicolas Rivera is just a regular dude who sometimes struggles, even if it’s just a struggle with a shirt.


	12. visits, Chapter 3.3

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.3**

 

*

**Hartford Panthers**  @panthersNWHL

An offseason treat for you: Check out this interview with our new goalie @sassalbright! hartfordgazette.com/sports/jul16…

*

Sarah usually isn’t too nervous about interviews. She’s a people person and even when an interviewer gets cocky – they tend to as soon as she loses two games in a row – she can handle it. But she’s on a new team now, and there’s always a little anxiety there when things are new. She doesn’t know how she’ll fit in yet; she hasn’t found her place on the team.

It helps that she already knows the reporter who’s going to interview her for the  _Gazette_ andSarah can’t help but laugh when she’s told that Nadira Patel will meet her around the corner from the  _Gazette_ ’s office in Hartford. Nadira is waiting for her in front of a tiny café, wearing a suit that sort of looks tailored, although Sarah is pretty sure that it isn’t. Nadira just makes it work. Her hair is in the most elaborate braid that Sarah has ever seen and she almost wants to ask Nadira if she did that all by herself, but deep down she already knows that the answer is yes.

“I can’t believe that they sent you to interview me,” Sarah says and immediately pulls Nadira into a hug. “Sorry, I got a little overexcited there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nadira says. She fidgets with the strap of her bag, holding on to it tightly, like she’s scared that it might evaporate or something. With a small smile, she nods at the door. “Ready?”

“Sure,” Sarah says and follows her inside. The café is all dark wood and dark green pillows and curtains. A small chandelier dangles from the ceiling and there are candles on every table. It makes Sarah feel like she’s stumbled into a completely different time and she wonders if Nadi takes people here all the time for interviews because it’s close to the Gazette’s office or if she somehow figured out that this is exactly the sort of place Sarah would like.

“Nice, isn’t it?” Nadira says and leads her to a table in the corner. “I don’t know if you’re a tea person, but they have the most amazing selection here. And I’ll absolutely invite you for a cupcake if you let me.”

“I’d love a cupcake.”

“All right.” Nadira seems to have flipped the  _business_  switch. “Do you want to get the photo out of the way first?”

“Yeah, actually, let’s get that over with.”

Nadira pulls a massive camera out of her bag and snaps several photos that she shows to Sarah – they’re all incredible, except for the one where she snorted because Nadira said, “Now look like you just poked Brian Griffin in the nuts with your stick.” The fact that Nadira clearly finds joy in the image of NHL superstar Brian Griffin getting poked in the nuts makes Sarah like her even more.

She doesn’t seem like Nadira has changed much and when they went out for a coffee at Millie’s before Sarah went back to Boston, it kind of felt like no time had passed at all since the last time they’d seen each other. It might have been at a party when Sarah was home the summer after her freshman year at college. It was a party behind the Mill, at the lake, which basically means that someone dragged a keg into the woods and a bunch of people showed up to get drunk. After that they didn’t hang out during the summer anymore. Sarah had other obligations most of the time.

Nadira orders a cup of Earl Gray and a scone and Sarah trusts Nadira’s judgement enough to get a cupcake, but orders a caramel latte instead of a cup of tea.

After she’s taken a bite of her scone, Nadira puts her phone on the table, already recording. “Is it okay if I record this?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says.

“Now, I feel like what most people would like to know is what convinced you to play another season. You’d already announced your retirement. What changed?”

Sarah has already told Nadira the Disappointing and Sordid Tale of Nate. She won’t tell the Hartford Gazette the same story, though. She’s keeping Nate out of this and it wasn’t about him in the end anyway. She signed with the Panthers because she felt like she wasn’t done with hockey just yet. She wanted to keep playing and Hartford has the added bonus that she’ll be close to home. Her grandpa hasn’t been doing well and she’ll be able to visit him more often now that she lives around here. She doesn’t mention that either. She says it’s a great opportunity that she couldn’t turn down.

They talk about the Panthers’ previous season, about Sarah’s career, what she’s been doing in Boston at the hockey camp, and it’s all typical Get to Know the New Player stuff – pretty much what Sarah was expecting anyway. Then Nadira asks, “Since the Olympics are coming up and you have a gold medal at home yourself, are there any tips you have for young players who are hoping to win gold for the first time or who are hoping to make the team in the future?”

Sarah was dreading the Olympics questions, even though she was sure they were coming. Much to her surprise, Nadira worded that one a lot nicer than other reporters might have. In Boston, someone asked her if she was disappointed on missing out on the Olympics. Someone else asked if she felt like she’d made a mistake when she “prematurely announced her retirement and didn’t think that decision through,” which will likely stay in the Top 5 of her least favorite interview questions for a long time.

“My advice would be to work hard, but to keep in mind that losses are part of the game. Every player wants to win, of course, but sometimes it’s hard to move past a loss and young players especially might feel like giving up, but a loss should actually be an incentive to work harder. I know for a fact that hard work will be rewarded eventually.”

She doesn’t mention the Olympics and Nadira gives her a knowing smile, like she knows that Sarah doesn’t want to talk about them. Nadira doesn’t follow up on it and swiftly moves on to the next question. “What are you most looking forward to next season?”

“Just… playing again,” Sarah says. “The Panthers are a wonderful organization and I can’t wait to hit the ice with those girls.”

“I’m sure everyone’s excited for the new season. I know I am. Thank you so much for this.”

“No problem at all,” Sarah says.

Nadira grins and ends the recording. “Sorry about the Olympics question,” she says. “I saw that interview you did in Boston…”

“It was a huge mess,” Sarah says.

“Yeah, Brad wanted to look over my questions and he told me to put it in, because apparently he feels like I need supervision when I’m trusted with big articles.”

Sarah purses her lips. “You know, I was gonna ask you how you like your job at the  _Gazette_ , but it sounds like I probably shouldn’t.”

“I mean, it’s… it’s different. I wasn’t covering the big stories at Metro Sports either, but my boss at least trusted me to do a good job and didn’t constantly act like I’m not able to write about men’s sports because I’m a woman and wouldn’t understand. The other day the guys were talking in the break room, you know, about the Cardinals and the Rivera trade and Connor and they were like, ‘Uhh, trading for Walden was a mistake, he’ll be horrible,’ and I didn’t tell them that I actually know him, but I said, ‘You know, he seems like a really nice guy who’s great to have in the locker room and I hope he does well,’ and I’m sure he will if they give him a partner he can work with and don’t just pair him with their worst guy because they aren’t willing to give him a chance. And then one of them literally said, ‘You women are so sentimental. It doesn’t matter if he’s a nice guy.’ Honestly, what the hell.” Nadira shakes her head. “I’m oversharing again.”

“Oh, please, do tell me all about those sentient trash bags, I’m happy to listen.”

“I actually really like the  _Gazette_ ’s chief editor, but I don’t really work with her a lot, because Brad’s the one who assigns articles. I hope I’ll get to do more stuff like this in the future.”

“Well, just make sure you’ll write the best article ever, and I’m positive you will, and maybe he’ll let you cover the Panthers.”

“I sure hope he will.”

“I can get you special access.” Sarah waggles her eyebrows. “I don’t know to what yet. But if there’s anything going on that I’m allowed to share, you’ll be the first one I tell. Although I guess that would be more interesting you if I played for, I don’t know, the Cardinals.”

“Well, Brad won’t let me go anywhere near the Cardinals, they’re his turf.”

Sarah smiles. “Then the Panthers can be yours.”

They chat for a few more minutes, but Nadira eventually has to get back to work and Sarah has to be off to whatever affordable furniture store is the closest. She’s moved in with one of the Panthers’ alternate captains, Helena Ness, and now she’s in desperate need of any and all kinds of furniture. One of the Panthers’ players who lived with Nessie for the past two seasons signed with the Providence Penguins, and Sarah practically pounced on that empty room when Nessie offered it to her. Right now, there’s a bed in that room. Nothing else. The apartment is Cedar Mills, above the crafts store at the town square. Now all she needs is another job, so she can actually pay the bills.

Before they part ways, Nadira says, “What are you doing on Friday night? It’s just… Ashley invited me over and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you tagged along.”

“Ohhh, I’d love to come,” Sarah says. Nessie suggested they’d plan some team-bonding exercises for next weekend, like watching movies and ordering loads of food and eating too much cake, but they have all of Saturday and Sunday for that.

Friday night can be for old friends and the rest of the weekend can be for new ones.


	13. visits, Chapter 3.4

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.4**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

hanging out with an old friend today, old friend is hanging out in the goal #bethepuck instagram.com/p/uKEr4qm

*

Monday night is usually a slow night at the rink, especially during the summer. Actually, pretty much every night in the summer is a slow night.

During hockey season, they have several hockey teams practicing, usually in Rink 1, and public skates and private lessons in Rink 2. In the summer, they have a bunch of hockey camps and fun skates for the kids to make sure the rink won’t be empty for weeks when people would rather head to the beach. They were closed for a bit after the end of hockey season for maintenance, but other than that they’re having a surprisingly good summer.

They had so many sign-ups for hockey camp that Alex had to add a few extra Learn To Skate sessions, for hockey and for figure skating. Alex organizes those together with the skating instructors; the private lessons are none of his business, but he handles the requests, so he knows that he has a Monday night slot to fill in the fall. He’s sure that there’ll be some more people looking for private lessons when figure skating camp is over.

In the meantime, Connor is booking Rink 2 on Monday nights. Alex wouldn’t have charged him for it, but Connor insisted on paying the usual rate for private ice time. Alex understands people who want a whole rink to themselves. He’s had the pleasure of being the only one on the ice many times and there’s no feeling quite like it.

Sometimes kids want to go skating for their birthday and if their parents can afford it they won’t just take them to public skate, they’ll rent a rink. It’s mostly people who live in the Mills. Alex has started offering birthday packages where one of the skating instructors will play games with the kids and Alex will get them pizza and maybe cupcakes if they ask for them.

One of the girls Ashley coaches also takes private lessons – her parents rent out a rink for her several times a week as well, hoping she’ll win a few medals in the future. Alex isn’t complaining. Public skates are a bit of a gamble on slow days. If no one shows up, no one shows up, and there’s very little he can do about it.

Alex isn’t running this rink because it’s highly profitable. He’s not in a position where he needs to make a lot of money with it. He didn’t have to buy the rink; his parents did several years ago and renovated the whole place. Alex does make some money with it, but he doesn’t even need it. It’s not just that his dad was an incredibly successful hockey player; his mom’s side of the family has significantly more money than his dad will ever make and Alex has extremely generous grandparents. He’s lucky; he knows that. He gets to do something he enjoys and he doesn’t have to worry about whether or not it’ll pay his bills just as long as it’ll pay the bills of his employees.

Tonight he’s in the front office, waiting for the hockey team – or at least part of the hockey team. It’s the guys who meet up for fun because they don’t want to stop skating during the summer. Once Connor and whatever friend he might bring – Alex assumes that it’ll be Mike Conrad, because they’ve been training together – are here, Alex is going to lock up and then he’ll go sharpen some rental skates. If he’s done early he might watch practice.

The door opens and Andy Daniels, the Vikings’ goalie comes in with his gigantic equipment bag. The guys call him Jack, which he allows with fond exasperation. He waves as he approaches the office. “Hey, Alex.”

“Hey, Andy.” Alex does not call him Jack, because he isn’t one of the guys, although that doesn’t mean that Andy wouldn’t like him to be.

When Alex started working here after he’d graduated, Andy came up to him before practice with a smile that very clearly said,  _I come in peace_. Andy offered him a place on the roster if he wanted one, he offered that Alex could practice with them whenever he wanted, that he didn’t have to join them for the actual games if he didn’t want to. Alex did consider his offer, but ultimately told Andy that he wouldn’t be skating any time soon. Andy accepted his answer without making a fuss and simply said, “Well, you know where to find us if you end up changing your mind.”

“Slow night?” Andy asks with a grin.

“The slowest,” Alex replies.

Andy hovers by the office door for a moment, and Alex pretends that he doesn’t think it’s weird. Actually, he really doesn’t think it’s weird. He figured out what’s going on a long time ago, so he’s come to expect it.

Like clockwork, Finn turns the corner in a tank top and the shortest pair of shorts Alex has ever seen him wear, his hair in a bun. “Oh, hey,” he says. “Already here for practice, huh?”

The thing is, Finn knows that Andy is here for practice, and he also knows that Andy usually arrives a few minutes before everyone else, and Andy knows that Finn leaves roughly around the time that he arrives and they somehow manage to meet right here multiple times a week. They say hello, they say how are you, they say goodbye, and go their separate ways with goofy grins on their faces.

So, yeah, Alex figured out what this is all about halfway during last season.

After several minutes of small talk, Andy leaves to put on his gear and Finn leans against the frame of the door.

Alex smirks at him.

“Do not even say a single word,” Finn says and grabs a piece of chocolate out of the bowl. “Hannah McAllister from my figure skating group wants to take one-on-one lessons. Let me rephrase,  _her parents_  want her to take one-on-one lessons. Do you think Ashley would take her on?”

“I don’t know, ask her.”

Finn glares at him, but that’s nothing new. “Do you even have ice time for another one-on-one lesson?”

“Not until the fall, but yeah. Did you tell them that they’ll have to pay for the ice time and for the coach?”

“Sure. They’ve got the money, believe me.” Finn takes another chocolate, eats it, puts the wrapper back in the bowl, and takes two more. “For the long drive home.”

Finn lives about ten minutes away from the rink.

He bends down to pat Byron’s head. Byron wags his tail half-heartedly because he was asleep until he heard the rustle of chocolate wrappers and went right back to dozing when he realized that this human, like all the other humans, won’t share the chocolate with him. Finn leaves him with a thoroughly unexcited, “See you on Wednesday,” and stalks off.

Alex picks up his phone to send a text to Ashley to ask her about Hannah McAllister and waves at the handful of hockey players that are starting to trickle in not too long after Finn has left.

He does hear the click of the door a few minutes later, and he does hear the footsteps approaching, but he assumes that it’s one of the hockey players. Until someone clears their throat.

Alex looks up. It is a hockey player, just not one of the ones he was expecting.  Nicolas Rivera is standing in the doorway, radiating quiet confidence. He looks good and Alex hates him for it. And of course he looks good, because he’s Nick Rivera, and that’s just what he does. He has that amazing hair and that handsome face and that stupid smattering of freckles on his nose.

“Goldie,” Nick says.

He’s said one word and Alex already wants to punch him in the face. “Nicky,” Alex says. “I assume you’re here to meet Connor?” Alex would have much preferred if Connor had invited literally any other teammate.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Rink 2,” Alex only says. He doesn’t have to explain the rink; Nick has been here a billion times in the past. He nods at Nick’s stick and equipment bag. It seems that he already got one from the Cardinals. “I guess you don’t need to borrow skates.”

Nick’s eyes are fixed on the chalkboard on the wall across from the front office. The kids have been adding their names and a couple of drawings. “I don’t,” Nick replies. He drags his fingers through his hair and it falls right back into his eyes in an artfully disheveled way that Alex resents. “I think I’ll wait here until Connor gets here if you don’t mind.”

Alex shrugs. He does mind, but he’s not going to start shit with Nick right now, as much as he secretly wants to.

“Is that your dog?” Nick asks, looking down at Byron.

Byron immediately notices that he’s the center of attention now and he perks up, because, who knows, someone might give him food, or at least some chin scratches.

“Yeah,” Alex replies.

“He’s cute,” Nick says. “Waldo told me about him.” He kneels down and holds out his hand. “Hi, there.”

Byron sniffs Nick’s hand and actually gets up to get a little closer and Nick scratches him behind the ears.

“So,” Nick says, all casual. He stands up again, his eyes flickering to the bowl of chocolates. He doesn’t take one, because he’s Nick Rivera and therefore disciplined and totally against all kinds of indulgence. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” Alex fiddles with a pen, because he can’t keep his hands still. “How about you?” He only asks because he’s making an attempt at being polite. He really deserves a pat on the back for that. Connor could have warned him that he was inviting Nick, although Alex could have probably guessed as much. Connor has been mentioning Nick in passing, but not quite as often as he mentioned Mike. Alex just jumped to the wrong conclusions and now he has to deal with Nick hovering in his front office.

Nick doesn’t answer his question. “Connor said you haven’t skated since–”

If Alex hears the words  _since the accident_  come out of Nick’s mouth he might punch him after all, so he interrupts him and says, “Yeah, well, I haven’t.”

“Why not?”

Alex isn’t quite sure how this is any of Nick’s business. “Because I can’t. You know, they did tell me that hockey just wasn’t an option anymore. I think you might have heard.”

Nick raises his eyebrows at him. “You  _can’t_? Or you won’t even try?”

“Does it matter?”

“‘Course it matters.”

“Why?” Alex asks. He really didn’t miss Nick and his way of getting right to the point without exchanging any pleasantries whatsoever.

“I’m just wondering…” Nick shrugs. “I mean, did you try? Or did you just give up?”

Alex is afraid that he might end up snapping that pen in half. He decides to ignore that question. The fact that he didn’t join a beer league has nothing to do with him  _giving up_. “Seriously, why does it matter to you? Did you just come here to give me shit?”

“I’m not giving you shit, I just know that you love hockey and it surprises me that you’d just give up on it completely.”

“I know this may seem controversial to you, but it’s possible to love hockey without playing it.”

“I’m well aware that that’s possible,” Nick says. He takes a step back. “I didn’t mean to be rude or anything, but… we used to skate together and–”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Alex butts in.

“–you never struck me as the person who’d just stop playing. I thought you were one of those guys who always manage to find a way back.”

“Back to where, Nicky?” Alex asks. The clip of his pen painfully digs into his palm. He’s quickly losing his last shred of patience. “Back onto a college team? Back to a roster spot in the NHL? There was no way back to that.”

Nick tilts his head, considering him. He has that look on his face. That look that’s meant to tell Alex that Nick has him all figured out. Alex knows this game; he’s played it many times before.

“What are you scared of?” Nick asks.

Alex glares at him in reply. He hates that Nick knows exactly which buttons to push. A few years ago, Alex might have let him, he might have engaged, might have not found himself wishing he could kick Nick’s ass out of his office. It wouldn’t have bothered him, but it bothers him now, because they haven’t talked in years and Nick has no right to talk to him like no time has passed, like they’re still the kids they used to be. “Nicky, no offence, but can you get the fuck out?”

“Sorry,” Nick says, and Alex knows that he means it. He always means it, even though sometimes he likes to pretend that he doesn’t. “I was just wondering.”

“Well, maybe it’s none of your business.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick says again. “You–” He falls silent when the door opens and Connor comes waltzing inside.

“Hey, you’re already here,” Connor says and gives Nick a pat on the back, also peering into the office.

“Just said hello to, uh…” Nick nods at Byron.

“Byron,” Connor coos. “The best boy.” He grins at Alex. “Hey, man.”

“Hey,” Alex says.

Byron goes and nudges Connor’s hand, because of course they can’t be in the same room without Byron getting at least a pat in passing.

Connor delivers, as he always does. “Right,” he nudges Nick, “ready to go?”

“Sure,” Nick replies, his eyes lingering on Alex.

Alex almost expects him to say something like,  _Maybe Goldie would like to join us_ , but he doesn’t and that only confirms that Nick got the message. He doesn’t get to pull the same shit that he used to. “Have fun,” Alex says. “I’m gonna lock up in a bit, but the door on the right opens from the inside. Make sure it’s shut before you leave.”

“Sure thing,” Connor says.

Nick shoots Alex one last look that might be another apology. Alex doesn’t care for his apologies at the moment, so he only stares back at him, his expression as blank as he can manage. Connor and Nick both give Byron another pat, then they turn to leave.

Byron follows them out the door, but is back a moment later when Alex calls his name. “Listen,” Alex whispers to him and pulls a dog treat out of a drawer, “you’re allowed to be besties with Waldo, but not with Nicky, you hear? We don’t like him.”

Byron nuzzles at his hand, tail wagging.

“I know…” Alex sighs. “You like everyone.”


	14. visits, Chapter 3.5

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.5**

 

*

_Nicolas Rivera Retweeted_

–––––

**CedarMillsRink**  @cedarmillsrink

Thank you for signing our board, @NickRivera13 and @ConnorWaldo!

–––––

*

Nick follows Connor downstairs to the locker rooms. They know their way around. The walls in the hallway between rinks have been painted in Vikings colors since Nick was last here, but this whole place is still achingly familiar.

Luckily they don’t run into anyone – Nick can hear the laughter of the hockey team in the locker room across the hall and he doesn’t feel like answering questions about the trade right now. When people run into him by chance, they feel like they’re allowed to ask him all sorts of personal questions. Not that everyone does, but he’s had some very strange encounters.

He and Connor go into the locker room for Rink 2. It’s the visitors’ locker room, because, as Connor points out, they  _are_  visitors and he seems to take that sort of thing seriously.

The rink is completely deserted, the stands are empty and the doors at the top of the ranks have been closed. The ice is untouched. Nick hasn’t been in here in so many years, but he suddenly feels like he’s sixteen again and Alex Goldman is already waiting for him at center ice, idly pushing a puck back and forth with his stick. He feels like all he has to do is close his eyes to hear their laughter echoing off the walls.

“Hasn’t changed much, has it?” Connor says. He leaves his phone, his water bottle and a handful of pucks on the bench when he sees there’s already a stack with the Vikings logo on them waiting for them, and skates out onto the ice.

Nick only hums in reply and stays next to the bench for another moment to shake off the strange feeling that makes him think he just stumbled seven years into the past. Seven years. Has it really been that long?

No wonder Alex was so pissed. Nick might have been a little insensitive there. But he knows Alex. He knows what he’s like. He wouldn’t just stop skating like that. He’s afraid. The Alex Goldman Nick knew back in the day was the opposite of afraid. Alex wasn’t afraid of saying what he thought, he wasn’t afraid of standing up to his dad, he wasn’t afraid of taking risks, and he wasn’t afraid of losing. He’s afraid now, although Nick isn’t sure what exactly it is that he’s afraid of. He probably should have bought Alex a beer or invited him out for dinner to catch up before he tried to tickle the truth out of him.

Alex clearly wasn’t happy to see him. Nick can’t even blame him. He totally dropped off the radar after his parents moved to Virginia; he didn’t come back to Cedar Mills. Nick doesn’t have Facebook, just a Twitter account that his agent thought was a good idea, so he didn’t try to keep up with his old friends. He found new friends on his team. Hockey took over his entire life and he’s only now starting to realize that maybe he shouldn’t have let it.

He obviously knew what Connor was up to; they ended up playing against each other four times last season. He follows Sarah Albright on Twitter, so he peripherally kept up with her as well, although he could have probably been more supportive than he was. He followed Nadira, too. Again, he only kept up peripherally. He had no idea what Ashley and Alex were up to until Connor told him.

When Nick heard about Alex’s accident, he suspected that Alex would go into coaching, or management, but that clearly wasn’t the case. He’s apparently not even coaching a peewee team and there must be a reason for that, but maybe Nick has lost the right to ask Alex questions like that somewhere along the way.

Possibly, Nick should have kept his mouth shut just now.

“Are you tired already?” Connor asks. “You wanna sit on the bench for a bit and ease back into it?”

Nick rolls his eyes, sets down his water bottle, and hits the ice as well, pushing over the stack of pucks that Alex must have left for them. He picks up one of them, tosses it into the air, catches it and then lobs it over to Connor, who’s fiddling with his gloves and completely misses it.

“We’re off to a great start,” Connor says, puts his gloves back on and skates after it.

They start out slow and run a couple of drills, but they’re chasing each other around the rink soon enough. Connor gets his phone from the bench and takes a selfie, and Nick can tell from the angle that he’s in the shot as well, so he waves and Connor laughs, turns around and snaps another picture of him.  

“Really?” Nick asks.

“Gotta document this momentous occasion,” Connor replies. “You wanna strike a pose?”

“No, thanks.” Nick grabs himself a puck and darts off. He understands that this is part of being a successful player and he knows that Connor likes to tease his teammates on social media, but that doesn’t mean that Nick is going to make it that easy for him.

Or at least he doesn’t intend to.

He ends up making it easy for Connor after all, when he slips on the other side of the rink and slides right into the goal.

“Stay right there,” Connor says and skates closer to take yet another picture. “Beautiful.”

Nick shakes his head at him. “Those are all gonna end up on Instagram, aren’t they?”

“Yes, Nicolas, because I’m all about giving the people what they want and I’m sure they’ll appreciate this incredible picture,” Connor says. “Unless you really don’t want me to post it. In that case–”

“Nah, it’s fine, Waldo.”

Connor grins, blows him a kiss, and returns his phone to the bench, so they can go back to actually playing. They stick around for a little while longer, but they eventually end up sitting on the bench. Nick sprays water at Connor before he can even pick up his phone.

“What was that for?” Connor asks, grinning at him.

“I don’t know yet.”

Connor laughs. “And they say you’re a boring guy.”

“I am,” Nick deadpans. He does his best to be as soon as there are any cameras and microphones around.

They fall silent, both of them staring out at the ice. There’s nothing quite like an empty rink. In LA, Nick always sat on the bench before games, taped his stick, took a few deep breaths and joined the rest of the guys in the locker room. He wonders if anyone does the same thing on the Cardinals, if he’ll be able to sneak away for a quiet moment before games once the new season starts.

Part of him is relieved that he gets a fresh start, the other part is screaming quietly. It’s steadily getting louder. His brain throws every single  _what if_  at him that he could possibly come up with.

Nick looks over at Connor. This isn’t the first time he’s been traded. He knows what it’s like. “Waldo…”

“Hm?”

“Are you nervous?”

“About what?”

“About…” Nick shrugs.  _About everything_.

“You mean about being here?” Connor asks, realisation clearly dawning. “Like, not  _here_ , but… about being on a new team?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on, dude, I know I’ve been traded a few more times than you have, but this isn’t the first time you’re on a new team.”

“I know, but… this is different.”

“Why’s it different?” Connor asks.

Nick begins to regret that he even started this conversation. He doesn’t do this sort of thing. Talk to teammates about how scared he is. He might admit that he’s nervous about a big game, because everyone is, but he hates being this vulnerable. He doesn’t want anyone to know about his weak spots; he feels like he has too many. “I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you know,” Connor says. “Just think about it. What makes you nervous that didn’t make you nervous about joining the Lions?”

It strikes Nick then that Connor would probably make an excellent captain. He’s really trying to help. What Connor doesn’t know is that Nick knows perfectly well what makes him nervous. “It’s just… the rumors and everything. What if the guys think that it’s all true?”

He had his spot on the Lions. The guys respected him. It wasn’t always like that. When he was a kid, he often was the odd one out. Not just because he wasn’t a rich white kid. Early on, he was one of the best players on the team and sometimes the other kids didn’t like it. Their parents didn’t like it either. His parents supported him from day one, but sometimes Nick played with the thought of quitting. In the end, he just wanted to play in the NHL too much to just stop.

So he kept going. He kept going until he was a first round pick. He kept going until he was invited to the All Star Game. He kept going until he won the Cup.

“I swear, they don’t think any of that crap is true,” Connor says. “You’re a good guy and we both know that and it’ll take those guys about a minute to figure it out, too. I mean, you already know some of them, right? They’re lucky to have you.”

Nick sighs softly. It sounds so easy when Connor says it. It sounds like the truth, but Nick still finds it hard to believe.

“People love to make up nasty shit, especially about players that are successful. It makes a better story. It’s boring if the guy who’s good at hockey also has his life together and is really nice to kids, so they invent some drama, because they think it sells better.”

“Yeah,” Nick says.

“Anyway…” Connor gives him a pat on the back. “You already have one friend on the team.”

Nick laughs quietly.

“And… I don’t know, I guess you’re not the kind of guy who wants a roommate on the road, because you can have your own room and all, but if you want a roommate…”

“What makes you think that I don’t want a roommate?”

Connor leans back and gives him a look. “I thought you were one of those guys who like being alone.”

Nick shrugs. He does like being alone, but he already has that huge house in the Mills all for himself and he doesn’t want to be by himself every single second of every single day. He likes having someone around every now and again.

“Well, if you want a road roomie, I’m all yours.”

“Okay,” Nick says. “Thanks, Waldo.”

“Happy to be of assistance,” Connor says. He fiddles with one of their pucks and gives Nick a nudge. “Can I ask you something?”

Nick hates that question, because it usually precedes yet another question that clearly can’t be asked without a warning. He chews on his bottom lip, wondering if Connor would be mad if he said no. Then again, this is Connor. He’s one of the best people he knows, so Nick says, “Sure.”

“Did it surprise you? The trade, I mean,” Connor says. “Because when I got traded, I knew. Sort of. Not for sure, it’s not like they told me beforehand, but… I had a feeling. And I’m not… Well, our situations are really different. Nobody thought the Lions would ever trade you in a million years.”

Nick takes a deep breath. He can tell Connor that it was a complete surprise to him and that he had no idea. Or he can tell him the truth. It shouldn’t be a hard question to answer, so he can’t think about it for too long, otherwise Connor might figure out that Nick is lying. In the end, he does opt for the truth, though. “I sort of knew, too.”

“Yeah?” Connor asks. He’s not explicitly asking Nick to tell him more, he’s just giving him a chance to tell him the whole story.

Nick can’t tell him the whole story, though. He can’t. So he only says, “Yeah.”

Connor seems to accept that as an adequate answer.


	15. visits, Chapter 3.6

**visits**

 

**Chapter 3.6**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Girls’ night!! instagram.com/p/5frONat

*

It’s been way too long since Ashley had a proper girls’ night. A lot of her friends don’t live in town anymore, one of the ones who are still around just had her third child, and then there’s the guys at the rink, of course. But with Finn and Alex, girls’ night is kinda off the table.

Ashley makes chocolate chip cookies and buys a lot of wine. Then she makes last minute brownies that are still in the oven when the doorbell rings. Jamie left about five minutes ago, a stolen cookie in his mouth, waving as he pranced out the door. She blew him a kiss and promised him that she’d set aside a brownie for him. Poor darling was so disappointed that he had to leave before they were done.

Nadira and Sarah arrive together, both of them beaming. They both give Ashley a hug, looking around curiously as they walk into the house.

It’s strange to Ashley that she feels like they’re still so close even after they haven’t seen each other for so long but Nadira and Sarah don’t know anything about her life. They haven’t even been to her house yet. Well, it’s not  _her_  house. They’re only renting this place. Jamie works at a high school about fifteen miles away and Ashley would have been somewhat willing to move away from Cedar Mills if they’d found a nice place, but Jamie doesn’t mind and this way it only takes Ashley about five minutes to get home from the rink.

Sarah has barely walked into the living room when she squeals and starts clapping her hands.

“What?” Nadira asks.

“Kitty,” Sarah only says and picks up Hendrix, who was chilling on his favorite armchair. Her eyes go wide when she spots Bowie, who’s sitting in the cat tree.

“You follow me on Instagram. I know you do. You know about the cats.”

Sarah hugs Hendrix to her chest. “But they’re so much better in real life.”

“Please don’t try to hug Dylan like that.”

“Is Dylan–”

“Probably sleeping on the stairs. He’s the black one with the white socks.” Sarah nods at the cat tree. “That’s Bowie. Jamie got him for me when I couldn’t compete anymore. I was such a mess and he didn’t know how to help me, so he got me a kitten.”

“The perfect man,” Sarah whispers.

“Speaking of perfect men,” Nadira says, “is Jamie still here?”

“No, he’s already left, but he says hi.” Ashley ushers them into the living room. “Speaking of men…”

“Still a lesbian,” Nadira says quickly.

“Let’s just… not speak of men,” Sarah throws in. “Like, at all. Let’s pretend that men don’t exist.”

Ashley makes a face. “That bad?”

“I’ll tell you what happened but then we have to pretend that there has never been a single man on this planet, all right?”

“Actually, let’s order pizza first and then we can talk about men. Which do not exist.”

Ashley orders more pizza than they’ll ever be able to eat – Jamie will appreciate it later on and Ashley will appreciate it tomorrow morning – and they sit down in the living room. When everyone has an extra full glass of wine, Sarah tells them about Nate, the Future Lawyer.

Nadira seems to have heard the story before, but she still sighs and rolls her eyes like she’s hearing it for the first time and just can’t believe what a jerk he was.

“I ran into him when I was in Boston doing that girls’ hockey camp that the Bolts organize every year,” Sarah says. “I was staying with Dani, she was one of my teammates, and when I ran into him he literally pretended that I broke up with him because I was cheating on him.”

“But you weren’t,” Ashley says. It’s not even a question. Sarah Albright isn’t the kind of person who’d cheat on someone.

“I wasn’t,” Sarah says. “But one of the guys he went to college with kept telling him that girls who are bi will obviously cheat on whoever they’re dating and apparently Nate, with his straight As and recommendations and whatnot, couldn’t figure out that that’s absolute bullshit.”

Ashley only blinks at her, because… “You were seriously dating that guy?”

“I mean, I just kept thinking that there’s not a single person who doesn’t have their faults, so I was inclined to forgive him for it. I thought he’d get that it was just some crappy stereotype… Anyway, I guess he was just so far up his own ass that he had to make it about someone else because he couldn’t believe that he did something wrong.”

Ashley takes a big sip of her wine. “Yeah, maybe we should really pretend that men don’t exist.”

“It’s been working really well for me,” Nadira says. “Anyway, Ash, have you started your wedding folder yet?”

“Wedding folder?” Sarah asks.

Ashley actually did buy a folder for her wedding ideas after her conversation with Nadira. She wasn’t planning on making this evening all about her but when she mentions that she’s been looking at wedding dresses, Nadira and Sarah are basically begging her to show them pictures, so when their pizzas get delivered, they’re crowded round Ashley’s coffee table, looking at wedding dresses.

Jamie’s been really good about all the other wedding-related business and he definitely has pretty passionate opinions about color schemes and flowers and desserts, but he doesn’t get a say when it comes to Ashley’s dress. She won’t even show him pictures of the dresses she might end up trying on when she goes shopping in a few months, because she doesn’t want to see even just a sliver of judgement, positive or negative, on Jamie’s face. She’ll get the dress she wants, the princess dress she deserves, and, sure, she’ll take her mom and some friends the day she goes dress shopping, but none of that concerns Jamie. He can help her make all the other decisions; they agree on pretty much everything anyway. Except for some teensy details that they’ll manage to figure out eventually.

They haven’t been together for this long just because they have the same opinion on everything, they’re just exceptionally good at finding compromises.

Ashley and Jamie regularly had disputes about where they should go for dinner whenever they wanted to go out and it wasn’t a birthday. Now they have a Who Decided Last list and Ashley won’t go as far as saying that it saved their entire relationship, because they didn’t get that worked up about dinner, but it definitely made things easier. No more  _You decided last time – No,_ you _decided last time_  arguments. They have proof now.

They eat pizza and put on  _Mean Girls_ , but they’ve all seen it a billion times, so they soon start chatting again.

“Do you guys ever miss high school?” Nadira asks.

Sarah laughs. “Not so much.”

“High school was hell,” Ashley grumbles. “I was so bad at… literally everything. But I was looking at old pictures the other day and I have to admit that puberty actually was kind to me. ”

“Things were easier back then, though,” Nadira mutters. “Like, living with your parents wasn’t considered a criminal offense.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not a big deal that you’re living with your parents,” Ashley says. “It’s not like you’re sitting on your ass doing nothing all day. You have a job and you’re doing great work.”

“Yeah, that’s your opinion. Brad might beg to differ.”

“Brad doesn’t exist tonight,” Sarah says and nudges Nadira’s glass of wine. “Brad is dead to us.”

“True,” Nadira says and empties her wine.

“Have you been looking at apartments?” Ashley asks.

“I’ve looked at every single available apartment in the area, but they’re either too expensive, or something died under the floorboards, or you have to share it with a ghost… you know, that sort of thing.”

“Sucks,” Sarah mutters.

“The thing is, living with my parents is nice, but it’s also slowly driving me insane. They’re always around. Snooping. Asking questions. It’s like I’m fifteen all over again.” Nadira sighs. “But they also make me food.  _But_  my mom also asked me if I’m currently seeing anyone. She actually did say the words  _a nice girl_ , and it was mortifying, and the food didn’t really make it better. And my dad always gets so twitchy when my mom asks me about girls. He’s trying so hard, but I just know that it bugs him. He’d probably rather find me a husband and be done with it, but my mom would take his head off if he did. Anyway, how are your lives going?”

Sarah only blinks at her. “Ash, I think the girl needs more wine.”

Ashley pours her some more.

“I’ll ask around,” Sarah says. “Maybe one of the girls knows anything about a nice apartment. Or maybe someone needs a roommate. If you don’t mind living with someone else.”

“I don’t, really. Unless it’s my parents.”

“You know…” Ashley isn’t sure if she should bring this up without talking to Alex first. Well, she doesn’t have to make Nadira an actual offer. “Connor Walden just moved in with Alex. And I’m pretty sure he has a few more guest rooms. I could ask him if you want.”

“No, I wouldn’t want to impose–”

“Honestly, Alex isn’t the sort of person who can’t say no. If he didn’t want any more roomies, he’d definitely say so.”

“Nah, Ash, I totally appreciate it, but I’ll figure something out. I have to figure my entire life out, so the apartment is probably the easiest thing.”

“Same,” Sarah says. “I mean, I was going to quit hockey and move to California with a guy who would have asked me to marry him at some point. Soon, probably. But I made good choices, you guys. I mean, now everything’s a mess and my mother can’t believe I’d give up a mediocre relationship for a few more years of badly paid hockey, but it’s so worth it. I should probably find myself a job, though. In Boston I worked at this equipment store…”

“Do you know how to sharpen skates?” Ashley asks.

Sarah gives her the  _duh_  look. Hendrix is still curled up in her lap, purring softly.

“Alex needs someone at the rink who can take care of a bunch of different stuff. He’s been looking at applications, but no one knows everything he’d need them to do and most of them are teenagers who’ve never skated, and they’re looking for jobs they can do after school and on the weekend, but we have people coming in all day ‘round, and, to be honest, Alex has been working way too much.”

“That sounds like something worth looking into,” Sarah says.

“I’ll ask Alex about it tomorrow,” Ashley says. She winks at Nadira. “I can still ask him about a guest room, too.”

Nadira shakes her head. “It’s okay, I’ll find something. It’d be weird, you know? I haven’t talked to Alex in ages. I don’t wanna be that friend who only shows up when they want something.” She drinks about half her wine and glares down at her glass. “I’m so glad that Sarah and I took a cab here.”

Sarah grins.

“I just feel like I’ve lost my purpose in life,” Nadira goes on. “Where do I even wanna go from here?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Ashley says. She didn’t know what to do either when she arrived at the end of her figure skating career earlier than she’d expected. She was utterly lost for a while there. It was just her, at her parents house, with her cat and Jamie still at college.

“I’m twenty-six, I should have it all figured out by now,” Nadira says.

“No, sweetie, seriously,” Sarah says and takes a brownie, “you take your time. All the time you need. Sometimes people are, like, in their forties and realize that they don’t want to keep doing what they’re doing. There’s no  _right_  time for anything, okay?”

Nadira chews on her bottom lip. “I just want to do something that’s at least sort of close to what I want to be doing. You know, something that’s related to hockey.”

“Start a blog,” Sarah says.

“About hockey?”

“Yeah, sure, why not?”

“Or you could do reaction videos.”

“You mean, like, reactions to games?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s already people out there who are doing exactly that,” Nadira says. “There’s no point.”

“Why do they own that format? It’s not like they invented that sort of thing. People have been posting reaction videos since the dawn of time,” Sarah says. “Or, like, the dawn of YouTube.”

“Huh,” Nadira says.

“Just yell about hockey.”

Nadira grins. “I love yelling about hockey.”

“Holy shit.” Sarah grabs Nadira’s arm. “I could be your special guest. I’ll yell with you.”

Nadira grabs Sarah’s arm as well. “Amazing.” She grabs Ashley’s, too. “We can all yell together.”

“I won’t be yelling, I don’t know enough about hockey,” Ashley says. “I just watch hockey for fun. It’s been ages since I watched my first game and I still don’t know what that whole plus and minus thing is all about.”

Nadira, for a moment, looks like she wants to explain, but then she waves her hand. “Anyway… I’m gonna eat another brownie. How many brownies are too many brownies?”

“You’ll know,” Sarah says.

“We should hang out all the time,” Nadira says. “I miss having friends.”

Ashley almost wants to give her a hug. “Ohh, we should. We will. Regular girls’ nights. We can watch games together.”

“Ash,” Nadira shouts and Bowie glares at her from the cat tree. “We can go to Sarah’s games together.”

“We totally should.”

Nadira gives Sarah a hug. “We’ll be your fan club. I’m so glad I ran into the two of you again, you’re saving my entire life.”

Ashley grins and pours them all some more wine. “Okay,” she says. “Hockey games. And lots of girls’ nights.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Nadira says.


	16. summer, Chapter 4.1

**summer**

 

**Chapter 4.1**

 

*

**CedarMillsRink**  @cedarmillsrink

Looking for something to do on this rainy Sunday? Our summer hockey tournament starts at 10!

*

“Nadira.”

Brad is using  _that_  voice. There are so many things in that voice that Nadira dislikes profoundly. She can already tell that he’s about to go all,  _You’re new here, so I make the rules and you have to do my bidding,_  on her.

“I know you have tomorrow off…” Brad says.

He’s making  _that_  face. It says,  _I’m about to inconvenience you_. It says _, I’m about to ask you to work on a Sunday. Again. Because you’re new_.

Nadira understands the nature of her job. She works in journalism and the news don’t take Sundays off, so neither do journalists. It’s not that Nadira has to cover world politics, but there’s always at least one game on any given weekend. They’re always in the middle of some season, or pre-season, or post-season. When you add local sports, which makes up most of their work, they definitely can’t take a day off. Someone always has to be around.

“And?” Nadira prompts when Brad only gives her a look that is probably supposed to get her to say something like,  _Yes, I have tomorrow off, but if it helps you in any way, I’ll absolutely come in anyway_. She generally doesn’t do Brad favors like that one, though.

“And there isn’t much going on tomorrow,” Brad says in the most annoying sing-song voice. “We need more content and if the Cardinals don’t pull another blockbuster trade out of their asses, we need to find ourselves something worthwhile.”

“Do you want me to check if there’s anything going on tomorrow that we could use?”

“I’ve already done that for you.” Brad smiles like he just did her the biggest favor. “One of our interns wrote a small piece on the Cedar Mills hockey camp a few weeks ago. You know, at the Goldmans’ rink. Hockey legend fosters the NHL stars of tomorrow. Not that Zach Goldman ever hangs around in Cedar Mills anymore, it’s just his kid… Poor guy. Nearly died in a car crash a couple of years ago. Would have loved to seen him play, but I guess he couldn’t have lived up to his dad’s legacy anyway.”

Nadira only raises her eyebrows at him.

“Yeah, so it’s the last day of camp tomorrow,” Brad goes on, “and they’re having a tournament for the hockey camp kids and I’m guessing the figure skaters will show off some tricks. Write something nice. Take a picture of the kids with their trophies or something.”

“I have tomorrow off, though,” Nadira says.

She was having such a good day. She went to the movies with the girls last night – Ashley and Sarah, and three of Sarah’s teammates. Nadira literally got to hang out with a bunch of hockey goddesses and it was incredible. There’s even a chance that she’ll get to hang out with the hockey goddesses  _again_. At least one thing in her life is going well.

“I know that, Nadira, and I’m really sorry, but someone has to do that and being the new girl just doesn’t have too many advantages. When you’ve been here for a year or two, things are gonna be different. But, hey, I don’t wanna be like that, you can pick another day off next week. Whichever one you want.”

Nadira should say no. She should make up some reason why she can’t come in tomorrow, because some people do make plans and even though she didn’t, it’s definitely a possibility. In the end, she’s way too nice to say no, especially because Jessica Norris is going to see that she’s doing good work, and if she’s doing good work she can possibly, one day, ask for a raise. “Fine. I’ll take Friday off, then.”

“Absolutely. Thank you, Nadira.”

Nadira doesn’t say,  _You’re welcome_.

“Make sure to get a quote from the Goldman kid. Ask him how it feels to watch all those kids play hockey every day when he can’t play anymore himself. Might make a good story.”

“Uh…”

Brad waves his hand dismissively. “You know what I mean… Tickle something good out of him. Ask if he misses hockey. Make it sentimental.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Nadira says. She will do no such thing. Sure, she’s a journalist and sometimes she has to ask hard questions, but her task is to write an article about the camp tournament, not to do an insanely personal interview with Alex Goldman.

Even without asking Alex questions he surely won’t want to answer, Nadira is going to write the best damn article Brad has ever read.

*

They’re lucky it’s raining.

Summer isn’t exactly the best season for hockey, and after camp ends, they’ll have a couple of slow weeks before hockey practices start up. The high school team will be back practicing at the rink as well and Alex is going to have his hands full again.

He does today as well. It’s definitely their busiest day of the summer and the weather is only making it busier. It’s nothing in comparison to a busy day in the winter, but Alex isn’t complaining.

The kids are downstairs, getting ready, running around with equipment that needs to be fixed at the very last minute, all of them waiting to show their parents what they can do. You can actually feel the excitement in the air. It’s what hockey does to a rink.

Alex just took the Zamboni around the ice; now they’re all set.

There’s something very peaceful about smooth, untouched ice, and sometimes Alex just stands there, looking out at it. It’s funny how he feels different about it every time. Sometimes he’s content to stand there and take it all in, to breathe in the cold air and remember being out there. Sometimes he’s itching to put on skates and hit the ice, just for a few laps. He could. His leg isn’t so bad that he can’t skate at all. But it wouldn’t be the same, he knows that, and it keeps him at the side of the rink, just looking.

After one last lingering glance, he shuffles down the tunnel.

A kid zooms past him with a shout, stick in hand. He already sees it in some of the kids – that willingness to spend every waking hour at the rink. Alex used to spend his summers here, doing drills, going over plays, wearing a Cardinals jersey with his dad’s number on the back. Sometimes people who also couldn’t stay away from the rink would join him.

People like Connor Walden and Nick Rivera.

“Alex…”

Alex dodges another kid and turns around to find Hannah hovering behind him. She’s one of the high school kids who’s been helping out at the rink since last summer. She’s supposed to be upstairs, keeping an eye on their donations corner.

“Everything okay?” Alex asks.

“Ashley sent me to find you,” Hannah says. “There’s someone here from the Hartford Gazette. She wants to ask you a couple of questions about today.”

“Sure, tell them I’ll be there in about five minutes.”

Alex does send emails about events at the rink to most of the news outlets in the area. He occasionally pays for an ad here and there, but sometimes, particularly during the summer, the smaller papers don’t have anything to write about and will pounce on opportunities like this one. He shouldn’t be surprised that someone actually showed up.

He checks in on the kids before he goes upstairs. He wishes each team good luck – they’re all friends by now, some of them are even on the same team during the hockey season. He knows them; they know him. Maybe he’ll see one of them play in the NHL and lift the Cup one day. Nick Rivera, who skated with him at this very rink, went from here to the NHL. Maybe one of them will win Olympic gold. Sarah Albright did. Sarah Albright has probably won more trophies and awards than the people she played with as a kid combined.

Alex recognizes their visitor from the  _Gazette_  immediately; mainly because he knows that Nadira Patel is back in town. Ashley has been hanging out with her, has been trying to rope him into joining them, but he’s been busy and when he isn’t the one who closes up, it’s usually Ashley. It’ll be different once the season starts and Alex inevitably hires a few more people.

Nadira is looking at their chalkboard across from the front office – he wiped it last night and wrote down the game and performance times for today, as well as a few little pointers –  _Sign up for regular season hockey now!_  –  _Ask a staff member if you’re unsure which team is right for your children!_  –  _Talk to our figure skating instructors to inquire about available time slots!_

And so on.

All the instructors and coaches are here today and they’re already being badgered by moms and dads who wants to know how they can turn their kids into future gold medalists.

“Hey,” Alex says as he steps up to Nadira.

She turns around, smoothing down her blouse. “Mr. Goldman. I’m Nadira Patel with the Hartford Gazette. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions?”

“Nadi, seriously?” Alex says. “You’re giving me the whole reporter thing?”

“Of course I am.” Nadira smirks. “In case you still haven’t noticed, I  _am_  a reporter.”

“Well, how can I help?”

Nadira holds up her phone. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“Go ahead.”

“Tell me a little more about the camp,” Nadira says. “I know there’ve been summer hockey camps at this rink in the past, but now you also have figure skating camps and tournaments. Why did you make that change?”

Mainly because Alex’s dad didn’t like the idea and so Alex was even more encouraged to make it happen. But he doesn’t tell Nadira that. He might have told her if they’d met somewhere in the street, but she’s here for business reasons and Alex will do his best to not even mention his dad. “There was a higher interest in figure skating than there was before, so I talked to the figure skating teachers and they agreed that it would be a good idea.”

Nadira smirks.

Alex is sure that she can already see this turning in a postgame-like interview.

“Why do you think a camp like this is important for the kids?” Nadira asks. “Some might say that playing hockey in the summer is a bit unorthodox.”

“A lot of kids do take a break for the summer, but then we also get some kids who play for other teams in the area. These kids really enjoy skating, whether it’s hockey or figure skating, so it’s nice for them to be able to do it for a few weeks in the summer as well.”

Nadira nods, her smile knowing. She likely hasn’t forgotten that Alex used to spend all of his summer at the rink when he was a kid.

She asks him a few more questions about what other programs they have for kids, if there’s anything for adults, if he already knows if there’ll be more camps next year. It’s pretty regular stuff; it’s what he was expecting. Alex is usually wary around reporters, especially when they cover hockey. They ask questions about his dad. They ask questions about him, his plans, why he’s not playing anymore, if he sometimes feels like putting on skates again.

Alex slips right back into his usual wariness when Nadira asks, “So you’re the owner of this place?”

“I am,” Alex says curtly.

Nadira blinks at him. “Oh, it’s just… You know, in the article I can go like, ‘Rink owner Alexander Goldman told me… whatever.’ I wasn’t trying to be nosy or anything. I’m sure you get a lot of people,” she makes a face, “asking personal questions.”

Alex lets out a slow sigh. He won’t deny it. He doesn’t get reporters here a lot, but sometimes there will be some special event – like today – and they’ll try to tickle something out of him. That is when he asks Ashley to take care of the interviews and he hides away downstairs, makes sure the kids are ready for their game, and waits for the Zamboni to be needed.

“Well, thank you,” Nadira says. “I was gonna stick around for the first game and take a couple of pictures.”

“Sure. I’ll get you nachos. You always got cheese dip, didn’t you?”

A takes a moment for Nadira’s lips to curl into a smile. “I did, yeah.”

Alex nods. Nadira spent a lot of time here, too. She was the one cheering them all on and sometimes her nachos went flying. Nadira has a passion for hockey like a player and it’s really none of Alex’s business, but he hasn’t quite forgiven Nadira’s parents for not even letting her try out for a team. They let her play street hockey with them when they were kids, and sometimes she’d put on skates and join them at the rink, but Alex knows that Nadira could have been an amazing player if she’d only been given a chance. Hockey equipment is expensive, though, he knows that.

“How do you like working at the paper?” Alex asks. Ashley told him. Of course Ashley told him. He knows that Ashley would love to say that she isn’t anything like her mother, but she’s equally chatty. Not that she can’t keep a secret or anything, but once she hears something newsworthy she’s usually overcome by the need to share it immediately with whoever is closest to her. She’s a bit like Waldo in that respect. Waldo just loves sharing NHL rumors of the  _Hey, did you hear that this player did this and that_  kind.

Frankly, Waldo has already told him a bunch of wild stories and Alex wouldn’t even be that surprised if at least half of them were true.

“Well,” Nadira says, and it’s honestly incredible that she’s keeping such a straight face despite her clear reluctance to say that she likes her job. She clears her throat. “Well. Yeah. It’s… a job.”

Alex smirks. “It most certainly is.”

“I mean. It’s all a bit of a mess. I’m living in my parents basement and my mom keeps trying to convince me to cook with her, because we all know that I can’t cook for shit…” Nadira takes a deep breath. “In any case, this isn’t the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but it also isn’t the worst.”

“Will you be covering the Cardinals?” Alex asks. They’re in the middle of the offseason, but players will be coming back soon. Some of them are already around. One of them ate all of Alex’s leftover pasta last night.

The question about the Cardinals was clearly the wrong one to ask, because Nadira presses her lips together and glares at the ceiling. “Brad will be covering the Cardinals. In fact, he just did an offseason report on the Cardinals and… You should read it. Like, I’m not telling you this as his colleague, okay?”

Alex nods.

“I guess he just wanted to put a bunch of outrageous bullshit in there, so he was like, oh, the Cardinals should trade Yoshi, he’s getting too old. I mean, what the fuck? You can’t just trade the captain? And the guy isn’t even thirty yet, honestly, Brad needs to chill the fuck out.”

Alex knows who Brad is, mainly because he does follow the Cardinals and has already come across his reporting here and there. Alex can’t say that he’s impressed with his work.

“Anyway, I’ll get to cover the Panthers,” Nadira says and now her face lights up.

“Kind regards to Sarah Albright,” Alex says.

Nadira’s smile grows even wider. “She’s the  _best_.”

“Alex?” One of the camp coaches, Bernadette, has sidled up to them. “We have a bit of an issue with the ice, there’s a little hole next to the visitors’ bench.”

“I’ll have a look,” Alex says. He shakes Nadira’s hand. “If you have any questions, I’ll be around. And you can always talk to the coaches and instructors whenever they have a minute.”

“Thank you…” Nadira says and for a moment it seems like she’s going for another  _Mr. Goldman_. She smiles. “Alex.”

“I’ll see you around.”

Alex wanders off, wondering if Nadira Patel will be in the stands with some nachos and cheese dip when the Vikings start playing again in the fall.

The thought makes him feel strangely nostalgic.


	17. summer, Chapter 4.2

**summer**

 

**Chapter 4.2**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

did you know that magical things happen when you put popcorn on pizza #seriouslyamazing

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

s t o p

 

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

yeah, @shanewilds33 was like 99.9% of my impulse control

*

A knock on the door has Connor looking up.

His door is actually wide open, but Alex is hovering in the doorway like he’s not quite sure if he’s allowed to come in. “Hey…”

“Hey,” Connor says and flips his laptop shut. “What’s up?” If he was living with literally anyone else, Connor might think that Alex was about to ask him if he wants to head out for a drink, but Connor has learned quickly that Alex isn’t really one for going out.

“You wanna order pizza?” Alex asks.

Alex is, however, one for ordering pizza. Which is fantastic, because so is Connor.

“And breadsticks,” Connor says. “And… that’s it, because I’m actually supposed to be getting ready for next season.”

Alex sighs. “Yeah… well…”

“Sorry.”

“No, I just meant…” Alex, hands in his pockets, shrugs. “Sucks for you.”

Connor snorts. Sometimes he’s still scared that he’ll say something that’ll remind Alex that he could be feeling guilty about eating too much pizza with Connor if he hadn’t had his leg crushed in that stupid accident. Well. Connor isn’t sure what exactly happened, but it definitely fucked up Alex’s leg somehow and here they are. “So… yeah, pizza. With extra cheese.”

“Sure,” Alex says and takes a step back, a small smile on his face. “You know what, you should do something about your room. It looks depressing.”

Connor looks around. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is… it looks exactly like the day you moved in. Except for that sock right there,” Alex says, nodding at the sock that’s hanging over the back of the armchair by the window. “Other than that it’s still really… guestroom-y.”

“I guess,” Connor says. “I mean, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, put up a picture of Wilder or something.”

“Wilder would chirp me into the beyond if I even just thought about putting a picture of him anywhere.” Connor grins. He sort of likes the idea, though. Shane Wilds was his best friend in Colorado and Connor already misses him like an arm. And a leg. And maybe like a fourth of his brain. “Anyway…” Connor shrugs and decides that finishing that sentence is not in his best interest.

Alex raises his eyebrows. “Anyway?”

“Nah, whatever.”

“Your mouth says  _nah, whatever_ , but your face doesn’t,” Alex says. He leans against the frame of the door, waiting.

“Ugh.”

Alex chews on his bottom lip, his head tilted. “You know, I can just go and order pizza, but…”

But they both know that Connor wants to talk about this, only Alex doesn’t know what  _this_  is yet.

“Yeah, okay, so, the thing is…” Connor trails off again. He doesn’t even know how to start explaining all the things that are bugging him. He drags his fingers through his hair, trying to find the right words without making it sound like he wants to turn this into a pity party.

Alex waits patiently for him to go on, slowly inching into the room, sitting down at the desk that Connor never uses. Well, he uses it to put down his laptop whenever he doesn’t have it in bed with him.

“Okay, well, we both know I’m probably not the best hockey player on the Cardinals right now,” Connor says.

Alex makes a face, but he doesn’t say,  _No, come on, you’re definitely one of the better ones_ , and Connor appreciates it. Because Connor isn’t one of the better ones. Maybe he’s not the worst player, but he’ll still have to work hard for a roster spot.

“I have no idea if I’m staying,” Connor goes on.

Alex doesn’t reply and Connor is actually convinced that Alex has considered this. He knows how the business works, because his family is a hockey family and he probably considers these things without being prompted. Alex looks at hockey stats like other people look at the weather forecast. He understands them instinctively.

Connor loves talking to Alex about hockey, because Alex analyses everything with the understanding of a player and a watcher, which is a perspective that regular hockey fans and writers usually don’t have.

Alex still isn’t saying anything, so Connor clears his throat and barrels on, because that’s just what he does when awkward silences seem to be lurking around the corner. Not that silences that involve Alex Goldman are usually awkward – Alex is silent in a very purposeful way; you never get the feeling that he wishes he had something to say. He’s okay with nothing being said and Connor wishes he could be okay with it, too.

“Yeah, so… I have no idea what’s gonna happen.” Connor shrugs. “It depends on the rookies and on whoever else signs with the Cards. I mean, they’d have to put me on waivers if they wanted to send me down, and then I might end up somewhere else entirely and… Yeah. It’s not totally out of my control, but there’s no guarantee that I’m staying.”

“Is that why you didn’t want to find your own place?” Alex asks.

Connor knows that Alex wouldn’t be mad if he said yes. And it is part of the reason, but it’s not the whole story. “I hate living on my own. And I knew I’d get along with you.” Connor grins. “And you have a dog.”

Alex grins back at him. “Of course. The dog.”

“The dog is a good boy and I love him,” Connor says. He plucks at his duvet, which isn’t really  _his_ duvet. He left a lot of his stuff in Colorado, gave it away, sold it, told Shane to do whatever he wants with it. As long as he doesn’t know if he’s staying, Connor sees absolutely no point in buying anything that’d be a pain to take with him if he ends up on a different team, be it the Cardinal’s farm team or a team that might pick him up off waivers.

Quietly, seriously, Alex says, “I think you have a good chance of making the team.”

“You do?”

Alex tilts his head like he doesn’t understand the question. It wasn’t an actual question anyway, more of an exclamation of disbelief. “I do,” he says. “I think it depends on several factors that you can’t do much about, though.”

“Like what?”

“Like which D-man they pair you with,” Alex says. “I don’t think you’d work well with Phillips.”

“Wouldn’t Phillips be the obvious choice, though?”

The Cardinals have a bit of a D-men situation. A situation that is good for Connor, because they have a lot of spots open, but it’s not exactly that great for the Cardinals because none of their D-pairs from last season are intact anymore. They traded Cody Jackson to the Lions for Nick, Phillips’s former D-partner retired and one of the Cardinals’ top D-men signed with Seattle. The Cardinals did sign another D-man and they might have some rookies coming up from the AHL, but they’ll still have to figure out their pairings.

“I agree, Phillips would be the obvious choice,” Alex says. “But I still feel like he’d be the wrong one. The two of you play very differently and maybe you’d be able to make it work, who knows, but I think you’d be better off with someone else. Either someone who’s also new, or maybe Santana.”

Connor raises his eyebrows at Alex. Cody Jackson used to play with Santana. There’s no way that Connor can replace Cody Jackson.

“The Cardinals have a lot of options regarding their lineup. They’ve got some guys in the minors that could be ready to play in the NHL and–”

Connor sighs. Yeah. Those guys.

“That doesn’t mean that you’ll get sent down,” Alex says. “It just means that you have a lot of competition, but you’d have a lot of competition on literally every team in the league.”

“True,” Connor says. He likes the way Alex talks about this. He’s not sugarcoating anything. He talks about what he knows – and what he knows is that Connor isn’t one of the better players on the Cardinals – but he somehow still manages to make Connor feel better about the situation he’s in.

He has a chance to make it, just like all those other guys.

“The thing is…” Alex starts and then trails off. “Whatever.”

“No, tell me what the thing is.”

“Nah, you don’t want me to analyze your entire career.”

“I actually sort of do,” Connor says. Because Alex won’t bullshit him. Alex will state the facts and connect them in the way he sees them and Connor likes the ways in which Alex sees things.

Alex scrunches up his nose. “Well, I guess, uh… I think Colorado just didn’t know what to do with you if that makes sense.”

It doesn’t make sense. Not really.

And it must be showing on his face, because Alex continues, “What I mean is that they weren’t willing to take a chance on you. They never tried you with a different partner, unless it was one of the call-ups, and then they scratched you a lot as well and they just… gave up on you a little, I think. And I suppose the Hawks just aren’t as willing to experiment, but I’m pretty sure that’ll be different on the Cardinals. I mean, remember Greggs? He’s retired now, but they picked him up off waivers and they gave him a chance and put him on the second line and he ended up being one of their best players.”

“Okay, but guys like Greggs are exceptions.”

“You could be a Greggs, Waldo,” Alex says. “Don’t stop believing.”

Connor groans and lets himself fall back onto his bed. “If I manage to get a roster spot in Hartford, I’m gonna put up posters or something. Like, it’d be nice if I could stay.”

“As I said…” Alex stands up and smiles. “Stay for as long as you want. I’m gonna order pizza.”

“Okay,” Connor says and rolls off his bed, “I’m gonna make popcorn.”

“Popcorn?”

Connor shrugs. “The pizza is gonna take a while. And I bet pizza and popcorn go really well together.”

Alex looks at him like he’s totally lost it.

This is the sort of thing that Shane would have kept him from doing, but when they finally do have their pizza, Connor, with purpose, takes some of the popcorn and sprinkles it on his pepperoni pizza.

Alex, once again, gives him that look, but then takes one piece of popcorn and sets it down on his veggie pizza with the greatest reluctance. “Why are we doing this?”

“Because we’re young and we love adventures,” Connor says.

Alex stares down at his pizza, clearly skeptical. “But do our adventures have to involve popcorn on pizza?”

“Yeah.”

Alex sighs. “Okay.”

Some might say that they need adult supervision, but to Connor this is really just a bonding experience.


	18. summer, Chapter 4.3

**summer**

 

**Chapter 4.3**

 

*

**Sarah Albright** @sassalbright

Nothing says celebration like a gigantic double choc muffin :)

*

Sarah isn’t nervous about her interview at the rink.

If she gets the job, that’s great. If she doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world.

She really wants that job, though.

Like. Really.

Ashley practically made her apply for the position at the Goldmans’ rink. Well, at Alex Goldman’s rink, she should say. It doesn’t belong to his dad anymore; it’s Alex’s now.

It’s perfectly fitting. He’s always cared about that rink, even when he just played there as a kid and snuck in after hours with a key he’d snatched from his dad. Zach Goldman, of course, pretended that he had no idea that one of his keys had gone missing and maybe Alex believed that his dad was really that oblivious, but Sarah is sure that he knew and just didn’t want to keep his son from becoming the hockey player he had the potential to be.

Zach Goldman wasn’t the kind of dad who said no when it came to hockey and maybe he did inspire Alex to work harder, but maybe he also made Alex think that nothing he did was good enough, so Alex felt like he had to keep working even when the rink was closed.

It’s not Sarah’s place to judge, but she knows what it’s like to grow up as the daughter of a famous dad, she knows what it’s like to have the money and the mansion and the cars. But her dad never talked to her the way Alex’s dad talked to him. Her dad taught her to be kind to herself, to stop when there was no way of going on, to allow herself a break when she needed it. She worked hard, but no one ever made her feel like she had to. She did it because it was what she wanted.

She has a feeling that it was never quite like that for Alex, although there’s no denying that he loved hockey more than anything else in the world.

Sarah has no idea how many times Alex snuck into the rink on his own, but occasionally, when he snuck in late on a Friday or Saturday night, Sarah would join him, together with Connor. Sometimes, when Nick was in town, he’d show up as well, and often enough Ashley was there, in figure skates, skating circles around them, trying to get Waldo to lift her. Sometimes Nadi Patel was in the stands, watching them, shouting commentary.

And every time, when they were done, skating towards the bench, laughing, shoving each other, poking each other with their sticks, Alex would usher them off the ice and get on the Zamboni to make sure the rink would look exactly as it did before they’d arrived.

It’s a beautiful rink, the ceilings high, the light just right. Sarah would love to work here and she knows that she’s the perfect candidate for this job. She knows her way around a rink. She’s ready.

Tugging at her blouse – she’s not a blouse kind of person, but this is a job interview after all – she walks up to the rink’s front door. The Vikings’ new logo is painted on the outer wall, not just a faded banner as it was back in the day.

Inside one of the walls is dark red, tiny white hockey sticks leading the way over to the empty front office on the left. The wall on the other side has a huge blackboard on it, covered in drawings; the table next to it, stacks of flyers spread all over it, also has a bucket full of chalk. Sarah checks her phone, sees that she’s ten minutes early, and grabs some chalk. Most of the drawings are at the bottom of the board, drawn by little skaters, so Sarah starts above them. She has more than enough room and enough time for a nice little sketch.

Alex said he’d meet her at the front office at half past ten. The rink is practically deserted. It’s the middle of August – they’re at the brink of the new season. Sarah has been busy getting to know her new teammates, although you can barely call it  _getting to know_  them. With six teams in the league and many of them playing on national teams, they basically know each other already, at least on a superficial level.

“Is that Josh Roy?”

Sarah drops her chalk, but catches it before it hits the floor and breaks. Alex has somehow managed to sneak up on her and is now standing behind her, hands in his pockets. Sarah has barely seen him ever since he graduated college. He hasn’t changed much. Still seemingly allergic to haircuts. Still wearing a pair of Converse that’s about ten years old by the looks of it.

“Yeah, it’s him,” Sarah says and quickly finishes Josh Roy’s left skate. It’s easy enough to tell that it’s him; Sarah made sure that the number on the back of his jersey would show.

“Would you sign that?” Alex says. “Connor has been coming and going and he signed the board and the kids went nuts when I told them it was him. It’s too bad that they’re not practicing yet, because I’m pretty sure Connor would drop in for a surprise visit.”

Sarah grins. “I’m sure he would.” She signs her drawing and suddenly regrets that she didn’t decide to draw one of her teammates. Well. If she ends up working here, she’ll get plenty of other chances.

“All right,” Alex says and nods at the front office, “do you mind if we do your interview in there? There’s technically a public skate in Rink 1 right now. I mean, it’s August and camp is over and all the regulars are already here, but someone should be around just in case.”

“Sure, of course,” Sarah says and follows Alex into the front office.

“Are you scared of dogs?”

“Wha– Oh. I’m really not,” Sarah replies and bends down pet the dog that’s sitting under the table, wagging his tail when she bends down.

Alex grins and offers her a chair. He pulls a stool out of a cupboard and sits down as well. “Well…” Alex says. “I don’t think I have to ask you if you have any previous experience.”

Sarah smiles.

“Look, the thing is, we both know that there’s probably no one more qualified for this job and Ashley has been singing your praises all week… I know you’ll have games and practices and whatnot, and we can totally work around that. I have a bunch of kids from the high school who’ll work on busy nights, but I’d need you to work late and lock up at least one night a week, maybe even two if it works for you.”

“Sure, no problem,” Sarah says.

Alex asks her a few more questions, but it’s pretty clear from the start that he is totally willing to give her this job, so their conversation quickly drifts away from hours and salary to Sarah’s contract with the Panthers. Alex has clearly been keeping up with the hockey world. He’d never seemed particularly interested in women’s hockey, but when they were kids, Alex was focused on becoming… well, another famous Goldman. At college he showed up to some of Sarah’s games, but then he also had his own games to play, and after his accident, Alex could only rarely be encountered in or around the rink.

Now that she’s talked to him, Sarah realizes that something about him has changed. She can’t really put her finger on what it is, because he’s clearly still just as obsessed with hockey as he used to be, but there’s something different about the way he talks about it. Perhaps it’s that he’s watching from afar now; he isn’t right in the middle of it all anymore.

“Do you want a tour of the rink?” Alex asks. “Actually, you probably remember what it looks like. I sort of… forgot that you used to be here a lot for a second.”

“Wow, how could you forget? You scored some killer goals on me.”

Alex only stares at her for a moment, then he grins broadly. “I did, didn’t I? You were good. Better than a lot of the other goalies I used to play against.”

“I’m still good,” Sarah says. Not to brag or anything, but she is.

Alex nods. “You are. Actually, I know someone who might be in need of a goalie every now and again.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Alex is on about. “Yeah, I’ve heard that Waldo is staying with you,” Sarah says.

Alex doesn’t look in the least surprised that Sarah has heard.

The more Sarah hangs out with Nadira and Ashley, the more she hears about Alex and the rink, the girls Ashley is coaching, Nadira’s job, and, of course, the Cardinals. Which means Connor Walden and Nick Rivera, mostly. They’ve talked about the rest of the team, because Nadira seems to be delighted to have someone who will talk about hockey with her and not pretend that her opinions don’t matter like her boss apparently does, but as soon as Connor and Nick are mentioned, someone will launch into a story –  _Remember when one of them did this or that…_

And the other day Nadira mentioned that Connor was staying with Alex, and it shouldn’t have surprised Sarah as much as it did, because Connor and Alex always had this easy kind of friendship where they didn’t even have to talk much to understand each other.

Apparently Ashley suggested to Nadira that she could ask Alex if he had another spare room. There’s not really a question there. Alex probably has at least  _five_  spare rooms in that mansion of his. The Goldmans’ house is even bigger than Sarah’s parents’ house; it’s completely ridiculous. Alex never seemed to like that house either, never seemed too keen on going back home, so Sarah doesn’t quite understand why he still lives there. Maybe it’s convenient. Maybe things have changed.

Nadira obviously feels awkward about asking and Sarah totally understands, but she’s also sure that Alex would be willing to rent out one of those rooms, since he’s already doing so and Nadira isn’t a complete stranger. Anyway, Ashley probably knows Alex better than any of them because she’s been working with him during the last couple of years and she wouldn’t suggest anything like that if she wasn’t absolutely sure that it was okay with Alex.

Nadira clearly isn’t happy in her parents’ basement – honestly, who would be – and has been looking for an apartment for ages. She can’t seem to find anything good and is starting to think that she’s cursed. “Finding that apartment in Brooklyn was way too easy after college. Like, Dee and I were so lucky, and this is the price I must pay. I’ll never find a decent apartment again,” Nadira said the other day.

Sarah has talked to Nessie and she said she wouldn’t mind if Nadira slept on their couch for a bit, but Nadira keeps saying that she doesn’t want to intrude and that this isn’t an emergency or anything. Which is true, but Sarah can also tell that Nadira hates that basement more and more with each passing day.

“It’s funny, isn’t it?” Alex says, pulling Sarah out of her thoughts.

“What’s funny?”

“Everyone ended up back here somehow.” Alex considers her for a moment, and Sarah can tell that he isn’t done yet. He clears his throat. “Don’t tell me if you don’t want to, I’m just wondering… I mean, you were going to retire, weren’t you, but then you changed your mind? What happened? Why didn’t you sign another contract with Boston?”

Sarah lets out a small sigh. This isn’t easy to explain without going too much into the whole Nate disaster, so she only says, “I sort of figured out that what I want in life should always be more important to me than what other people want me to do.”

Alex nods, like he understands. And maybe he does. It’s hard to tell, because Alex sort of disappeared after he had that accident. Sarah still saw him around at college, but it wasn’t the same and he never seemed to be in the mood to talk. Sarah didn’t take it personally.

“Anyway, there’ve been some personal developments that led to me leaving Boston…” It wasn’t just her break-up with Nate. Her grandpa isn’t doing so well and she wanted to be closer to home, just in case. It’s not like she’s going to dump all that on Alex, though, especially not right now, during what is technically a job interview.

Alex only hums in reply and takes her down the hall, shows her the main office in the back, the break room, the equipment room, the locker rooms, the stands. They end up watching the public skate for a little while, Alex looking down at the ice almost fondly. He can’t be making too much money with the rink – not that he needs it – but he clearly loves this place.

“Are you sure you want this job?” Alex asks.

It seems like a strange question to Sarah. “Would I be here if I didn’t want it?”

Alex smirks. “Sass, come on, we both know that you could get a better job than this. Didn’t you do economics at college?”

“Yeah, my dad thought that was a good idea. I guess maybe it really was, except I hated it and… yeah, no thanks.”

Alex nods. “I need someone who doesn’t leave after three months because the job is too boring.”

“I understand that.”

“Then again I can only offer you a contract until next summer.”

“I understand that, too.”

“I’d love to have you on board,” Alex says.

“I’m all yours.”

Alex’s lips twitch ever so slightly. “If you wanna coach… I’m pretty sure there are some kids that might benefit from a good goalie coach. Or some teams who might benefit from someone who’s, y’know, played on the national team.”

“Maybe coaching would be fun,” Sarah says.

“Maybe,” Alex echoes. “Think about it.”

“I will.”

They watch he public skate for a little while longer. They don’t talk and yet Sarah feels like she could stand here with Alex for hours and love the ice from a distance.


	19. summer, Chapter 4.4

**summer**

 

**Chapter 4.4**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

hanging out with some old friends tonight :) instagram.com/p/ke4UdN8

*

“This was a great idea,” Ashley says.

“The best idea,” Waldo agrees.

Sarah flicks a fry at him. “I’m pretty sure  _you_  weren’t supposed to work late tonight.”

“I’m pretty sure  _you_  weren’t supposed to work late tonight either.”

Connor shrugs. “Does anyone want the last burger?”

“You can have it,” Ashley says.

It’s Friday night, late August, and the sun is just now dipping behind the trees behind Alex’s house. They’re sitting on the porch in the back, their conversation accompanied by the noises you only hear on a summer evening, and they’re eating burgers and fries – no healthy food in sight except for the lettuce that Sarah put on her burger.

Usually there’d be a disco skate at the rink tonight, but Alex decided that after about five people showed up to last week’s Friday night skate, tonight’s skate wasn’t completely necessary. He closed the rink early and invited Ashley and Jamie over. Jamie is visiting one of his college friends in New York this weekend, though, so Ashley brought Sarah instead. They’re basically colleagues; Sarah starts working at the rink in a couple of days anyway.

Connor shoves the last burger into his mouth. Byron is watching him, eyes on the burger as Connor devours it in a few bites. Ashley reaches out to scratch Byron behind the ears and he nudges her hand when she stops.

“He’s so cute,” Sarah says, sitting up so she can see Byron better. “Alex, why is his name Byron? I thought you hated poetry?”

“Okay, so, first of all, I don’t hate poetry. I just hated writing essays about poetry in college,” Alex replies. “Anyway, I didn’t pick his name. He was Ashley’s neighbor’s dog and she couldn’t take him when she moved.”

“She was an English Lit professor,” Ashley throws in.

Sarah grins. “I had this biology professor at college who always brought his gigantic dog to class.”

“Ah, yeah,” Alex says. “Pavlov.”

“He was a good boy.”

“The best boy.”

Connor shakes his head at them. “It’s so weird that you guys went to college together.”

“Well, we just occasionally ended up waving at each other from all the way across campus,” Sarah says. “Alex was too cool to hang out with the likes of me.”

Alex huffs, his  _I’m mightily offended_  face on. “That’s so not true.”

“Yeah, I know, Tara Henderson kept hitting on you and you hated it, so you never wanted to hang out with me anymore.”

“Honestly, that girl had never even heard of personal space,” Alex grumbles.

“She was so in love with you.”

“Well, I was…” Alex trails off and grabs his beer.

He was in love with hockey, mostly. He was in love with the idea of playing in the NHL.

Ashley remembers the girls in high school, their eyes following Alex as he wandered the halls, completely unaware that there was anything other than hockey in the world. It was mostly just him; he didn’t spend too much time with Waldo at school, because Alex is two years older than him, but he’d sit with Ashley during lunch and talk about the Grizzlies and the Ravens and the Eagles. Never about the Cardinals. Never about his dad.

Jamie joined them often enough and he’d talk about football.

Ashley talked about figure skating.

It somehow worked for them.

“Whatever,” Alex says. “We did hang out occasionally.”

“True,” Sarah said. “Remember when you were about to graduate and we got so drunk…”

“How drunk?” Waldo asks.

“ _So_  drunk,” Sarah says. “Like. So fucking drunk. We broke into the rink.”

“ _You_  broke into the rink,” Alex whispers.

“Well, you followed me in,” Sarah whispers back to him.

Connor snorts. “I need, like, the full story of your college adventures. Maybe I should have played in college. Shane did and he has the wildest stories.”

“Let me guess,” Sarah says. “Shane totally lived in a frat house, didn’t he?”

“‘Course he did,” Connor replies.

The college talk goes on for a little while longer and, tentatively, Sarah and Alex get out their own frat house stories, the post-game celebrations, the pranks they pulled on each other’s teams.

No one mentions that Alex had to stop playing after his sophomore year.

Ashley gets it, in a way. She never mentions her injury either. People often just assume that she retired because she wanted to, not because she didn’t have another choice. She did think about going to college afterwards. She really did. But she doesn’t need a degree to coach. One of her figure skating kids has a pretty good chance of competing internationally in the future. She likes her job. It’s good enough for her.

But listening to Sarah’s and Alex’s stories still makes her feel like she somehow  missed out on something big, despite all of her other achievements.

Sarah tells them some stories that not even Alex seems to have known about and Connor listens with rapt attention, slowly picking apart his napkin and rolling up the pieces into little balls. Ashley eventually can’t take it anymore and gently puts her hand on his arm.

Connor looks at her, eyes wide, following her gaze to the small see of white napkin balls. “Sorry,” he whispers and puts down what’s left of his napkin. “Sass, you still haven’t told us what exactly happened when you and Alex broke into the rink at college.”

“We didn’t get caught,” Sarah says with a shrug.

“Yeah, it was just…” Alex shrugs. “A farewell tour of sorts.”

“Oh,” Connor says.

“Graduating was weird, wasn’t it?” Sarah goes on, clearly not willing to let this conversation become awkward. “Like, seriously… I guess that’s what retiring is like. You just realize that you’ll never go back and that things will never be the same and it’s scary as shit.”

“Okay, but you literally did retire and then you came back,” Alex says.

“Shut up, Alexander,” Sarah says and hurls a fry at Alex. It bounces off his arm and Byron quickly scurries over to get it before anyone else can. Sarah sighs. “I mean, I was going to retire, but that was before… Anyway. Ash, how’s all the wedding business going?”

Connor sits up straight, hitting Alex in the shin in the process. “Oh my God, do you have a dress yet?”

“Not yet,” Ashley says, “but I’ve been looking into it.”

The whole wedding thing just goes way over her head and she’s honestly so glad that Jamie is willing to take care of a whole bunch of phone calls and what she secretly calls The Organizational Bullshit. Of course she’d never say that in front of her mom, or Jamie’s mom, or their moms’ moms, because they would think that she’s totally incapable of planning this wedding and would offer to do it for her and she’d end up caught in her worst wedding nightmare. Not that her mom and Jamie’s mom would ever be able to agree on anything.

Ashley and Jamie don’t have any problems agreeing on things, the problem is that they want to do so many things for their wedding that they’re having a hard time actually deciding on anything.

The dress isn’t gonna be any easier, even though Jamie won’t be involved.

“I’m gonna need some help picking it,” Ashley says. “So, if anyone here feels like they have some good opinions on dresses…”

“I don’t have  _good_  opinions on dresses, but I’ll tell you that you look beautiful every single time and I think that might also be helpful when other people are trying to tell you that whatever dress you’re trying on is ugly,” Connor says, beaming at her. “Although I guess that wouldn’t be super helpful and you’d rather have these guys there.” He nods at Alex and Sarah.

“I’d actually love to have all of you there,” Sarah says. Honestly, her and Waldo haven’t really been in touch during the last couple of years, but she could use someone who tells her that she looks beautiful even if she’s wearing the ugliest dress of all time.

“Ahhh!” Sarah claps her hands. “I’d love to come.”

“Seriously, just tell me when and where and I’ll be there,” Connor says. “Unless I have a game that day. Or I’m on a roadie. Actually this could get really complicated. But I’ll be there.”

Alex doesn’t say anything, he just smiles at her. He’ll be there; he doesn’t need to tell her.

“Well,” Ashley says, “I’ll see what I can do so all of you can come along. Nadi should come as well.”

Nadira will tell her the absolute truth, which will be a nice balance to Connor telling her that she looks great by default. She’s definitely going to need both of that. She  also has to figure out how she’ll survive the moms being there.

She wants a big wedding and she wants all her friends to be there and Jamie wants a huge wedding cake and lights on strings and flowers and they both know what it’s supposed to look like in their heads, but getting there seems completely impossible. They’ve been looking at locations, but they’re either not right or too expensive or booked for the date they picked.

Sometimes she just wants to say,  _Fuck it, I don’t need a fancy wedding_ , and get married in a field, just her and Jamie, and then go to Five Guys afterwards. But then she remembers all her friends and the lights and the flowers and thinks that maybe it’s worth the sleepless nights and the extended internet research and watching  _Ellen_  videos on YouTube because she just can’t look at any wedding stuff anymore.  _Ellen_  always helps; it’s like magic.

“If you need any help with anything…” Alex says, pulling her out of her thoughts. “I mean, there’s probably nothing I can do, but if there is, let me know, yeah?”

Ashley nods and nudges his foot under the table. He’s offered so many times, but he really can’t do anything. Other than come with her when she picks that dress. And he listens. Every time Ashley feels like the whole getting married business is going to kill her, Alex is there, nodding along as she tells him about her wedding woes, no matter how silly they are.

“Thanks, Alex,” Ashley says and reaches out to ruffle his hair.

Alex makes a face, but he doesn’t complain.

They’re all quiet for a long moment, the sun finally disappearing fully behind the trees. Byron is dozing under the table, not waiting for food to drop anymore. Alex eventually gets up to turn on the lights and gets a few more beers and a bag of chips from inside the house. He dumps the chips in Connor’s lap and hands out the beers.

“Thanks for inviting me, you guys,” Sarah says as she opens her beer.

“We should do this more often,” Ashley says.

“We totally should,” Connor agrees.

Alex only shares a quiet smile with Ashley. She knows exactly what he’s thinking –  _Who would have thought that we’d all end up back here again?_


	20. summer, Chapter 4.5

**summer**

 

**Chapter 4.5**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

little unofficial training session with elite goalie @sassalbright and a guy we ran into outside the rink, I think his name is @NickRivera13 :))

*

Nick won’t lie, he was surprised when Sarah Albright showed up at the rink with all her goalie gear and hit the ice with them.

“I thought it might be more fun if we had an actual goalie,” Connor said, an arm slung around Sarah. She was smiling brightly when she shook Nick’s hand, but now that she’s between the pipes, she looks like she’s reader to murder both of them in cold blood if they get anywhere near her crease.

He still hasn’t scored on her. Neither has Connor, but… well, Connor is isn’t much of a goal-scorer.

Nick thought this would be easier and he doesn’t like that he thought it would be easier. He’s seen Sarah play before. He should know that getting a puck past Sarah Albright is anything but easy.

He fetches himself a puck and gives it another try. He’s so sure that it’ll go in this time; he can basically see it soaring past Sarah’s glove, but she stretches at the very last moment and grabs it, a huge grin on her face as she tosses it in the air and catches it again.

Connor skates up to them and comes to a halt right next to Nick. “Holy shit, man. Sass… Sass, that was the most ridiculous save.”

Nick only nods.

“Aw, look at Nick, he can’t believe you caught that one,” Connor says, laughing. “Actually, I can’t believe you caught that one either.”

Sarah grins. “Well, I can,” she says and throws the puck at them.

Connor picks up the puck, flips it into the air and then passes it to Nick. “Wanna try again?”

Nick does want to try again. He gives Connor’s leg a tap and says, “How about you play defense?” Because Nick has never made things easy for himself in his entire life.

“I usually do,” Connor says, deadpan.

“I mean–”

“I know.” Connor winks at him and skates a circle around Sarah before he approaches Nick, getting closer and closer until he zooms past Nick and shouts, “Race ya.”

There’s no way for Nick to catch up with Connor, even though he was the fastest guy on the Lions and will likely be the fastest guy on the Cardinals. He almost makes it. Connor is beaming when he makes it to the other side of the rink before Nick.

“Amazing,” Connor says, a little breathless. “Let’s remember this day as the first and the last time I was faster than you. And I had a headstart. How the fuck are you so fast?”

Nick shrugs. “Hard work. And being smaller than most players does its part, I guess.” He bites his lip. That came out wrong. “I didn’t mean to insinuate that you don’t work hard. That’s not what I was saying at all. It’s just–”

“Chill, Rivs. Seriously. I know what you meant.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. “Okay.”

“All right…” Connor waves at Sarah. “Puck, please.”

Sarah gets one and lobs it down the ice. It goes right into the other net.

“Ready?” Nick asks.

With Connor on the ice as well, it takes Nick four tries to score on Sarah. They give it a few more tries after that, then they move on to some moves Nick has been wanting to try – they get more and more ridiculous and Sarah eventually just flops down on the ice when Connor says, “Hey, let’s try to bounce the puck off Sarah.”

“Come on, Sarah,” Nick says, “it’s a good idea. Let’s try it from behind the net.”

“You guys are killing me.”

Honestly, Nick likes the way Connor thinks.

It works. Not immediately, but they’re starting to come up with increasingly hilarious ways to score on Sarah. She stops them often enough, grinning broadly whenever Connor curses loudly.

“Let’s try something else,” Nick says and gets another puck.

“Yeah you guys can go ahead and try something else, I’ll be right back,” Sarah says and skates away, across the ice, to the Zamboni entrance. She taps on the glass and someone appears behind it. It takes Nick a moment to realize that it’s Alex.

He opens the Zamboni door so he can talk to Sarah.

“Hey, it’s Alex,” Connor says and waves.

Nick also waves, with a little less enthusiasm than Connor. Alex probably doesn’t give a shit.

Alex waves back at them, but quickly turns his attention back to Sarah.

When they got here, Alex wasn’t around. Or at least he wasn’t in the front office. Nick didn’t know the guy who was helping out, but Connor and Sarah clearly did and talked to him for a few minutes before they finally headed downstairs. The guy’s eyes kept darting over to Nick, eyes crinkling when he smiled at him, and Nick wasn’t even annoyed when the guy asked him if he was excited about playing for the Cardinals since he grew up around here.

Whatever Sarah is telling Alex on the other side of the rink seems to be highly amusing. Alex laughs and ducks his head a little and Nick catches himself remembering that Alex used to do that back in the day as well. It feels like a strange thing to remember, but he has this vivid image in his head – Alex, on the ice, fiddling with his stick, always fiddling with his stick, Nick hovering next to him, unwilling to go home even though it was late, talking just for the sake of talking, grinning when he made Alex laugh.

Nick is so caught up in the moment that he almost wants to skate over and say hi.  Then he remembers that Alex clearly hasn’t forgiven him for being a douchebag. Maybe he should apologize. He honestly can’t remember if he apologized back then or not.

He shakes his head at himself and only then notices that Connor is looking at him with badly concealed curiosity. Nick was probably staring. He bites his lip and fetches a puck, so he has something to do.

“I’m guessing you don’t wanna talk about it,” Connor says.

“About what?” Nick asks, trying to look as innocent and clueless as possible, even though it clearly hasn’t escaped Connor that something weird is going on.

Connor smiles at him and Nick can’t help but smile back.

“Yeah,” Connor says, “I figured.”

The thing is, Nick wouldn’t even know where to begin to explain this. Nick thought he and Alex might be fine, but maybe it was naïve of him to assume that things would just magically be all right.

Well. He didn’t think much about running into Alex Goldman in general.

Okay, that’s a lie.

Maybe he did think about seeing Alex again when he moved back here. He considered the possibility of running into him, but he wasn’t planning on actively seeking him out. Really. He wouldn’t have rocked up at the rink if Connor hadn’t invited him. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have had a reason to.

On the other side of the ice, Sarah and Alex are still talking and Sarah is poking Alex through the door. He keeps hopping out of the way and then leaning closer again only to jerk away again, laughing.

It takes Nick a moment to realize that he’s staring again. Connor is watching him stare.

Nick really needs to change the topic. He doesn’t want Connor to think– Well, quite frankly, he doesn’t want Connor to ask him any more questions about Alex, although Connor could always ask Alex about it. They live together. They’re pretty close. They were when they were kids, too. Alex won’t tell Connor what happened, though. If there’s one thing Nick is sure about, it’s that.

He clears his throat. “Sarah has been making some really good saves.” Great, now he sounds like he’s talking to the media.

“Yeah,” Connor says and it seems that he’s high-key amused because Nick is talking to him like he’s a reporter.

Nick starts pushing back and forth some ice shavings, because now he’s feeling awkward. Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to talk just for the sake of distracting Connor from the fact that he was staring at Alex.

He meant what he said about Sarah, even though it didn’t come out the way he intended. She’s been making saves that some NHL goalies couldn’t have managed and it strikes him as unfair that she only barely makes a living playing hockey and had to find another job here at the rink to support herself. He should look into supporting the Panthers somehow.

Sarah skates back over to them, tapping both of them with her stick as she returns to the crease. “Ready when you are.”

Nick shoots a quick glance at the other end of the rink – the Zamboni door is closed and Alex is nowhere to be seen. They still have the rink for another half hour and Connor jumps right back into finding the most hilarious way of scoring on Sarah – “What if I bounce the puck off your ass, Nick?” – “No, thanks” – “Do it, Waldo, I’ll give you ten bucks.”

It’s funny how none of this could be described at serious practice, but when it’s time to go, Nick still feels like he accomplished something. And he definitely has a better understanding of how Connor plays. It’s going to come in handy, he’s sure.

They collect their pucks and push the net over to the Zamboni door when they’re done and Connor skates over to take care of the second one.

“Actually… do you mind if I stay for another minute?” Nick asks. “I’ll take care of the net.”

Neither Connor nor Sarah seems to find it strange that he wants to stick around. “Sure, we’ll wait for you upstairs,” Connor says, and he skates off with Sarah, picking up their bucket of pucks as they leave.

Nick drops the one puck that he kept in his hand and hurls it into the net with as much force as he can muster. There’s something satisfying in just letting the puck fly. It bounces out of the net, Nick picks it up, hurls it in again, a different corner this time.

A few more times, then he freezes when he sees Alex hovering in the shadows.

As soon as Alex realizes that Nick has seen him, he takes a step back.

“Wait,” Nick says and skates to the glass. He taps on it, like Alex can’t tell that he wants to talk to him.

He can see Alex heave a sigh as he reluctantly walks over to the glass and opens the Zamboni entrance. “Sorry, I thought you guys were done.”

“I’ll leave in a minute,” Nick says. They’ve only got the rink until 9:30 and Alex probably wants to go home, so Nick is keeping him here, which certainly won’t make Alex feel better about him being here.

“Okay,” Alex says. “Take your time.”

“Goldie…”

“Seriously, I’ll just do the other rink first, it’s not a big deal.”

“Goldie,” Nick says again. He knows that Alex won’t listen, no matter what he says, but he wants to try anyway. “Can I just–”

Alex, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, takes a step back. “I have stuff to do.”

“I know,” Nick says, gripping his stick tightly. He just needs to get this out of the way, because otherwise it’s going to bug him forever. “Just a few seconds.”

Alex doesn’t look like he wants to give him even just half a second.

“Alex, please.”

Now Alex seems to be a little more willing to listen. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry about… what I said,” Nick says. He’s not sure what it was that went so wrong that day he came to the rink with Connor, but Alex was upset with him and he just wants to make things right. He’s just not sure if he can do that if he doesn’t know what went wrong in the first place.

“Okay,” Alex says.

“I don’t know what’s going on in your life and I guess I shouldn’t have… commented.”

“Yeah.”

“I just wanted to say that,” Nick finishes. It still doesn’t feel like it came out right, that seems to be an issue for him in general today, but at least Alex isn’t frowning anymore, so Nick must have done something right.

“You said one more minute?” Alex asks, nodding at the ice.

Nick shrugs. He’s not sure how far he wants to push it. “Maybe two?”

Alex doesn’t seem to mind, he just asks, “Can I watch?”

It takes Nick a moment to remember how to form words at all, because he was expecting anything but that. “Sure,” he eventually says.

Alex doesn’t say anything else, he just pushes the Zamboni door shut, his expression still stony, and watches from behind the glass. Nick almost wants to show off a little with Alex watching him, but in the end he does what he’s been doing all along, and after the first two shots – both sailing into the net with precision – Nick forgets that Alex is there.

When he looks up to see if Alex has any comments whatsoever, there’s no one behind the glass.

Nick sighs and picks up his puck. Time to go home.


	21. beginnings, Chapter 5.1

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.1**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

The new kids are having a lot of fun with their new dad, @MattieJones55 #GoCardsGo

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Some old friends are reconnecting here at Cardinals training camp: Rivera and Rogers played together in the OHL

|

_Replying to_  @CardsInsider

Hellström and Rivera both played for the LA Lions during Rivera’s rookie year

|

_Replying to_  @CardsInsider

Walden and Rivera have told us that they’ve known each other since childhood and have been skating together this summer

*

It’s late when Connor unlocks the front door, tiptoeing into the house, setting down his bag as quietly as he can. The lights are dimmed in the kitchen down the hall and the only noise he can hear is the soft  _tap-tap_  of Byron’s approach. He’s not exactly quick to greet Connor, likely because he was asleep, but he does nuzzle at his hand, requesting a proper  _hello_.

“Hey, buddy,” Connor says and scratches him behind the ears. “I missed you.”

Byron nudges Connor’s knee with his head.

“Where’s Alex?”

Byron only wags his tail and nudges him one more time.  _More pets_. Connor kneels down and obliges, knowing full well that Byron won’t get tired of this and that he could be doing this all night.

“Okay, come on,” Connor says, “it’s way past my bedtime, so it’s also way past yours. Come on…” He ushers Byron down the hall, past the paintings and photos that Alex’s family left behind.

Connor isn’t sure why Alex doesn’t take them down. Because there is one thing that he’s sure about and it’s that Alex most definitely isn’t the kind of guy who has a painting of a bowl of fruits hanging in his hallway. That’s Alex’s mom. She probably loves fruit bowls. But Alex? Connor frowns at the painting as he passes it, and he also frowns at the collection of photographs that follows – Alex and his dad on the ice, and Alex holding up some peewee team MVP trophy, and Alex and his dad and the Cup.

Sometimes Connor wants to ask Alex if he really wants those photos there. He walks past them every day on his way to the kitchen, but maybe he doesn’t even see them anymore. Maybe, for Alex, they’ve faded into the background and are part of some past life that doesn’t matter to him anymore.

Connor doesn’t like looking at them, though. He feels like he’s hating them on Alex’s behalf.

“Go on,” Connor says to Byron and points at the living room door. It’s open wide enough that Byron can get out and one of the lights is still on.

Connor peers inside as Byron curls up on his cushion next to the couch, his head resting on his old stuffed dragon. Alex is stretched out on the couch, snoring quietly, glasses still on, hugging a pillow against his chest. The TV is still on, but the screen is black. Alex probably fell asleep while he was watching a movie.

Connor grabs the remote and turns off the TV and retreats as quietly as he can. He stops in his tracks a moment later. Maybe he should get Alex a blanket. It’s not exactly cold outside, but you always sleep better with a blanket, right? Isn’t that some kind of universal rule?

He grabs the blanket at the end of the couch.

Okay, maybe this is a little weird. Is it weird? He just wants to be nice. If he’d done this for Shane– Actually, he did tuck Shane in a few times, and Shane thought it was hilarious and then spent several days calling him Mom.

It’s different with Alex, because he’s always so somber, and with Shane it was just one joke after the other. But then Alex also puts popcorn on his pizza and laughs his ass off about it. And then he chirps Connor to hell and back before they’ve even had breakfast and Connor realizes that he’s still learning that Alex never looks like he’s in the mood to joke around, but that doesn’t mean that he’s not ready to deliver a devastating burn.

Anyway. Blanket. He doesn’t need to analyze their entire relationship to answer the blanket question.

Before he can debate a little more with himself, the blanket he’s holding develops a life on its own and untucks itself, sliding down and knocking over an empty cup on the coffee table. It’s not even that loud, but in the middle of the night everything’s always louder than it would be in daylight.

Alex twitches and blinks at him. “Hey, you’re back,” he says, his voice raspy.

“Yeah,” Connor says and quickly drops the blanket back onto the arm of the couch. “Sorry, didn’t meant to wake you up.”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t actually planning on sleeping here,” Alex mutters. He sits up and throws his pillow back on the pile at the other end of the couch. “There’s leftover Chinese in the fridge if you’re hungry.”

“I’m good. I should go to bed and…” Connor shrugs. Go to bed and hope that tomorrow will go better.

Alex is looking up at him, a little rumpled, hair sticking up, shirt twisted, and definitely concerned. Connor needs to do a better job at hiding how completely and utterly exhausted and deflated he feels.

“You wanna sit down for a second?” Alex asks.

Connor is glad that Alex didn’t ask him if he wants to talk, because he really isn’t sure if he’s in the mood to say anything at all. He does sit down, though, because he already knows that it’ll make him feel better to be around someone who won’t try to cheer him up by saying something that won’t mean a thing to him.

Alex doesn’t say anything for a moment, he just sits next to him, cross-legged, glasses sliding down his nose. He pushes them back up, considering Connor, clearly thinking of the right thing to say.

If Connor knew where to start, he’d say something now. He’d tell Alex about all the things that have been going wrong. All those tiny little things, all the ways in which he wants to be better but doesn’t know how. At the beginning of training camp he thought things might go his way, but once the actual preseason games started, Connor found himself right back where he left off last season.

He hasn’t done shit. Sure, he kept a few shots out of the net, but that’s hardly impressive when Tyler Yang scores a hundred goals every game and makes all the other D-men look completely fucking useless.

Connor takes a deep breath. He’s being an ass and he knows it. He likes Tyler Yang, he’s a funny dude who’s really good at telling when it’s time to stop being funny and to get down to business.

“You wanna tell me?” Alex asks.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Connor says. He leans back, grabs one of the pillows and hides his face behind it. It doesn’t really make him feel better, so he drops it again. He’s just frustrated, that’s all. He worked so hard this summer. He thought he’d be able to see the difference.

“So you’re not playing the way you want to be playing,” Alex says, which is a slightly more polite version of,  _So you fucking suck, huh?_

“Yeah.”

“And what are you gonna do about it?”

“What do you mean? I’m doing everything I ca–”

Alex gives him a look that’s somehow piercing and gentle at the same time. “Are you?”

“Yeah, of course I am.” Connor stares back at Alex for a moment, trying to figure out what’s going on in Alex’s head right now. Yeah, he’s got nothing. “You don’t think I am?”

“I think you’re playing it safe,” Alex says.

“What else would I be doing? I’m not… I’m not fucking Rivs who can say, ‘Hey, can we try Hellström on my line,’ and they just do it because he’s Rivs and he’s gonna score them so many goals… like, so many fucking goals. I’m a healthy scratch at best.”

“I’ve seen you and Nick at the rink this summer. You’re better than a healthy scratch.”

“Okay, but…”

“You understand him,” Alex goes on. “You understand the way Nicky plays and you can work with that.”

“Nick wasn’t even playing tonight,” Connor says.

“He will be playing. And when he is, you’ll know where to find him.”

“But…” Connor takes a deep breath and rubs his chin. He  _is_  playing it safe, because he wants to stay on the damn team. Maybe Alex is right, though. Maybe he needs to take a little risk. “But what if it doesn’t work out and I fuck everything up?”

“They’re not gonna send you down because of one bad play.”

Connor nods, because Alex has a point, but– But. Connor is scared. This is his dream and it’s always hanging by a thread. It’s not that the AHL is a bad place for a player to be, but now that he’s made it this far, he doesn’t want to lose it all again.

“Dude,” Alex says, “it’s only the beginning of the preseason. You haven’t even played at home yet.”

Also true. The Cardinals played their first preseason game in DC, then they played in New York last night. Tomorrow’s his first game at A&P Bank Center with the Connecticut Cardinals and he wishes it’d feel less like a test, but that’s exactly what it is.

Nick has been trying to be encouraging, smiling at him from a few seats over, on the bench, on the plane. Nick isn’t wearing the A anymore like he did in LA, but there’s still a hint of captaincy in him. He’s always talking to the rookies before games, writing down plays for them. He hasn’t played yet, but the Cards also don’t really have to think about whether or not they’ll put him on the roster.

Connor stares down at his socks – there’s tacos on them, a gift from Shane. “Do you think I can do this?” He knows that Alex won’t lie to him about this, so maybe he shouldn’t have asked. There’s a good chance that Connor won’t like the answer.

Alex hums, obviously thinking about it, which means that the answer is neither,  _No, I don’t think you can_ , nor,  _Yes, of course you can do this_.

“I think you have a good chance, but I’m not sure if Russell is the right partner for you. The good news is that Phillips and Santana aren’t doing so well together either, or so says the internet, so they might end up pairing you with one of them, which I think will significantly improve your situation…” Alex trails off and shrugs.

“What?” Connor says, because he can tell that Alex was going to say more than that. Alex always has more to say, but it seems that he selects the things he wants to share pretty damn carefully.

“Well,” Alex says, “let’s hope that it won’t take them too long to realize that shuffling their D-pairs can only help.”

What Alex is saying is that the Cards might decide to place Connor on waivers before they give him a second chance with a different partner. Connor groans quietly, grabs the blanket from earlier and just tosses it over himself, because he’s  _done_.

“You’ll be fine,” Alex says and pats his head.

Connor can’t see him right now, but he knows that Alex is smiling, just a little bit. Connor groans and flops over, right against Alex. “Sorry,” he says. “I’m just… having a less than ideal day.”

“That’s okay…” Alex tentatively pats his back. “We all have those.”

“I don’t want them.”

“Yeah,” Alex says softly, “I know.”

“It’s really hot under this blanket,” Connor grumbles and pulls it down far enough so his head sticks out. “So, you really think I can do this?”

“Why does it matter if  _I_  think you can do this?”

Yeah, okay, Connor should maybe work on believing in himself, but… “I trust your judgement, ‘s all.”

Alex nods. He doesn’t look surprised, but there’s nothing cocky about the way he just accepts it. Alex knows a lot about hockey, and he understands it, and he has an eye for these things. “Just… I don’t wanna say stop playing it safe but… take a risk here and there,” Alex says.

“A risk here and there,” Connor echoes.

“A small one.” Alex grins. “You know, try to bounce the puck off someone’s ass or something.”

Connor snorts.

Alex tugs his fingers through his hair. Is he embarrassed? He sort of did just admit that he was watching them practice, but he owns the rink, so why wouldn’t he? Alex shrugs. “Yeah, you, uh… you know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Connor says.

Alex is right. Something needs to change.

Connor slowly runs his fingers along the hem of his extremely soft blanket. He’s completely exhausted and the preseason has only just started; he shouldn’t be this tired. Although it is past midnight and he didn’t get any sleep on the plane, so maybe he should drag his ass into bed and he’ll be fine tomorrow morning. The thing is, he has Alex here right now and he’s been thinking about whether or not he should ask for days and he feels like he’s going to explode.

_Whatever_.

“Alex…”

“Hm?”

“Do you wanna come to the game on Thursday? I know it’s just the preseason but… could be fun.”

For a second, Connor thinks that Alex is actually going to say yes. Really just for a second, though. Because then Alex bites his lip and he makes that face that he also makes right before he tells Connor not to leave his fucking socks lying around all over the house. “I can’t. I need to close up the rink.”

“Right,” Connor says. He knows the schedule by now. Alex closes up on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Ashley closes up on Sunday and Wednesday, and Sarah does it on Monday and Tuesday. The thing is, Connor also know that they switch sometimes and that there’s some coaches and instructors that Alex is willing to entrust with the keys to the rink, so he technically doesn’t  _have to_  be there on Thursday.

What this means is that Alex would rather be at the rink than at the game and that’s fine. It’s fine. Connor can’t pretend that he isn’t disappointed, because everything he feels somehow goes straight to his face, but he can at least pretend that he can’t tell that Alex is lying. It’s just a little lie anyway. Connor understands that Alex doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. And he understands why Alex doesn’t want to go. It must be hard for him and Connor doesn’t want to make it even harder.

“I’m sorry,” Alex says, and that one isn’t a lie.

“Maybe some other time,” Connor says.

Alex nods. “Yeah, maybe some other time.”

That one doesn’t sound like a lie either.


	22. beginnings, Chapter 5.2

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.2**

 

*

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

The Hase – Rivera – Hellström line is giving Grenier hell at practice today.

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Cards are also still shuffling their D-pairs, they’re currently trying the following:

Yang – Novak

Santana – Walden

Phillips – Russell/Jannson

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Show us how you supported your Cardinals last season for a chance to win a pair of tickets to our home opener on Wednesday! #GoCardsGo

*

“Holy shit, these are amazing,” Nadira says. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Ashley says.

“And I love you three,” Sarah adds and picks up her second cookie.

Alex, the provider of the aforementioned cookies, looks completely and utterly unimpressed by the  _I love you_ s that are being directed his way. It’s apparently not in any way strange to him that it’s approaching midnight and that he has three girls  in his kitchen, stealing his freshly baked cookies on this fine Saturday evening.

Sarah wasn’t even working at the rink today, but she dropped by earlier to skate with the youth hockey team. Alex brought it up the other day – “One of the goalies on the youth hockey team asked about you,” he said, and Sarah immediately decided that she’d come by. The Panthers were all over it and made her promise that she’d post pictures. She’s posted plenty.

Just when she was about to leave, Ashley stopped her in the hallway and invited her over to Alex’s place with a, “Sarah is coming tonight as well,” shouted in Alex’s general direction.

“We can give you a ride if you want,” Ashley said. “Oh, and we should invite Nadi.” And so Sarah ended up in the backseat of Ashley’s car, Nadi on her left, and Jamie waving at her from the passenger seat as she climbed into the car.

Instead of watching a movie, they ended up in the kitchen with Jamie mixing them cocktails – “Don’t worry, I’ll drive you all home” – and Ashley very slowly assembling cookie ingredients on the kitchen counter, her eyes on Alex, who watched her, thoroughly unbothered. He smirked when Ashley dropped the chocolate chips on top of the pile and slowly walked over to the oven to turn it on.

Sarah understands now. The thing with the cookies? Best idea ever.

“I need this recipe,” Sarah says.

“Sure,” Alex says.

“Can I pay you to make these for me once a week?” Nadira asks. “They’re, like, the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I can get you the recipe, too,” Alex says.

“No, you don’t understand… the second I walk into the kitchen, my mom starts watching me. She’s always there. Right behind me. Watching everything I do. It’s ridiculous. And, sure, okay, I’m horrible at cooking. I really am. But she even watches me when I get ice cream. And then she tuts at me and I know that she’s judging me, she won’t say anything, but it’s in her eyes, it’s…” Nadira shakes her head. “I need an apartment.”

Alex looks up, shares a look with Ashley, but doesn’t say a word.

“I just feel like a complete failure,” Nadira says. “And my mom is just… she’s so good at saying the wrong things.”

With a soft sigh, Alex picks up a cookie and hands it to her.

Nadira takes it and sullenly shoves it into her mouth.

Alex clears his throat. “You know, I do have–”

“No,” Nadira says. “I want to do this on my own. I don’t… Like, honestly, I appreciate that you want to help, but no.”

Alex accepts that with a small shrug and then turns away to clean up all the ingredients that Ashley pulled out of cupboards earlier. Quietly, Jamie joins him, looking lost as he picks up the chocolate chips until Alex nods at the cupboard they go in.

Sarah takes a sip of her cocktail and tries to keep herself from taking another cookie.

Being here feels comfortable, familiar. She’s spent a lot of time here since she started working at the rink, and more often than not Waldo hangs out with them and Ashley usually also invites Nadira.

In the beginning, Sarah wasn’t sure how comfortable Alex was with having her around all the time. Things turned sort of weird between them in college when Alex couldn’t play anymore. Hockey was such a big part of their friendship – they supported each other, occasionally even practiced together when they could get ice time. Really, it was astoundingly easy for Zach Goldman’s son to get ice time. And then hockey was gone, and Alex spent most of his time away from the rink, and no one in the world could blame him for that.

Well, there was that one time they snuck into the rink, the day before Alex graduated. Sarah wasn’t exactly sober that day, but she remembers Alex sitting on the home team’s bench – his team’s bench – his eyes fixed on the ice, his thoughts clearly far, far away, somewhere in the past, when he was still out there, the team’s leading scorer, already a star, already beloved, already living up to the Goldman legacy.

Now Alex talks about hockey again, talks about it a surprising amount, with the knowledge of someone who hasn’t taken his eyes off the league ever since he could interpret the numbers. He seems to enjoy it, too, so Sarah no longer feels like her presence will remind Alex of a time he might not want to be reminded of.

He’s still quiet, but he’s always been. That also makes it harder to tell what he’s thinking, though.

Regarding the people in this kitchen, slowly but surely making all those cookies disappear, Sarah knows where everyone’s at in their life. Alex is the only exception. He’ll participate in conversations, will talk to Nadira about one of her articles, will ask Ashley how the wedding plans are coming along, will ask Sarah about how she’s liking her new team, but he never talks about himself.

Sarah won’t be the one to ask.

She knows what it’s like to be asked questions that aren’t easily answered. She had dinner with her parents the other day – her dad took her and her mom to some expensive French restaurant that ended up being slightly underwhelming. Her mom spent the entire dinner asking her about Nate and if she’s talked to him, and if she knows what he’s up to now, and if she might be willing to give him another chance, “Only if he’s willing to give  _you_  a second chance, of course.”

Sarah really doesn’t want to give Nate a second chance. He did call her not too long ago. He left her a message, blabbering about how great he has it in California, clearly trying to tell her about all the things she’s currently missing out on because she’s not there with him.

She didn’t even listen to the whole thing.

Sarah has more important things going on and her love life is the least of her concerns right now. She’s worried about the upcoming season, because there’s a chance that it’ll be her last, but she doesn’t want it to be, but at some point she’s going to have to think about what she’s going to do when she retires, and she’s not at all ready for those thoughts.

For a while there, it really looked like Nate was going to be a big part of her future, but now that he isn’t, she’s suddenly free to decide what she wants to do. She has all these choices to make and she feels like she’ll never be able to tell if whichever choice she ends up making will actually be the right one.

It scares her that she won’t be playing hockey forever.

And of course she’s always known that. The thing is, it didn’t seem scary to her before. She literally retired at the end of last season. She didn’t know she was going to come back. That wasn’t part of the plan. She had a different plan, but now she doesn’t have a plan at all and that makes all the difference.

Being with Nate was safe, but, ultimately, it was her Plan B. It just took her a while to realize.

Silently, Alex pushes one of the last cookies over to her, pulling her out of her thoughts.

Sarah raises her eyebrows at him.

Alex only shrugs and Sarah wonders what the hell was happening on her face to convince Alex that she needed another cookie. She does need one, he got that right. She gives him a smile that’s supposed to be a thank you, but maybe it’s also something else, because Alex pats her shoulder, like he knows that she’s been having a quiet existential crisis for the past couple of minutes.

With a huff, Byron, who was previously busy watching for cookie crumbs, squeezes past Sarah and heads out the door.

“Waldo,” Alex only says.

Connor himself appears only a moment later, wearing a suit, and a lopsided beanie on his head. “Ohh, cookies.” He takes one and grins. “How’s it going, guys?”

“Just discussing Nadi’s less than ideal living arrangements,” Ashley says.

“You know,” Connor says, eyes on Alex, “I’m sure Alex wouldn’t–”

Alex smirks as Nadira shakes her head. “No, we’ve been over this,” Nadira says. “I’ll find something. I will. Seriously.”

Connor ruffles her hair. “Fingers crossed.”

“Congrats on the assist, dude,” Ashley says and pats his back.

Connor snorts.

“What?”

“You said  _dude_.”

“Shut up.”

“I will not shut up,” Connor says, his smile growing wider, “because I have good news.”

“You’ll let the Ravens win on Wednesday?” Nadira asks.

“Please,” Sarah says. She grew up hating the New York Ravens and so did Nadira, but with her living in New York for such a long time, things have clearly changed.

“I know…” Nadira lets out a long-suffering sigh. “I can’t help it, I went to too many of their games. I love them a little bit. That’s the sad truth.”

“Well,” Connor says, “I definitely won’t help the Ravens win, but… what if I told you that you could be at the game.”

Nadira grabs Connor’s arm. “Do not even joke about this.”

“I’m not joking.”

“You’re not joking?” Nadira starts bouncing up and down. “ _You’re not joking_. We’re all going to the game?”

“I’ve got four tickets, so…” Connor looks around, making a face when he sees Jamie.

Jamie only waves him off. “Don’t worry, I’ll go with Ash some other time.”

“He’ll get me tickets for Christmas,” Ashley whispers to them.

“Good,” Nadira says and then starts bouncing again, around the kitchen island, over to Sarah. “We’re going to the game. Wait. What about the rink? Who’s closing up on Wednesday?”

Ashley sighs. “I–”

“We’ll figure something out,” Alex interrupts. “Don’t worry about it.”

Nadira gives Sarah a tight squeeze and pulls Ashley into the hug as well. “We’re going to the game!”


	23. beginnings, Chapter 5.3

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.3**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Nick Rivera is the first skater on the ice for today’s Cardinals practice #GoCardsGo

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Rivera and Walden just scored the most ridiculous goal on Grenier at practice and cellied accordingly

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Coach Harrison on finalizing the opening night roster: “We still have some decisions to make, but we have a pretty good idea of what the roster will look like on Wednesday.”

*

“You know…”

Alex looks up when that’s all that Connor says. “Yeah?”

Connor hums, staring down at his chicken. “It’s just…” He puts down his fork and then puts down his plate, like it’s distracting him from what he wants to say. “You were right.”

Alex sure loves to hear that, but he has no idea what he was right about in this case. “I was right?”

“You…” Connor shakes his head. “You just totally called it. The thing with Santa? You said from the start that the Cards should pair him with me and they did and it’s working.”

“Well, the two of you…” Alex shrugs. He’s not sure how to explain it. “I just felt like you’d complement each other well. And… I guess you do. I’m glad they decided to give it try.”

“Tell me about it,” Connor says.

Alex can’t be sure, of course, but Connor likely won’t be a healthy scratch anytime soon. Santana is one of the Cardinals’ better D-men and Alex understands why they were reluctant to pair him with a guy like Connor, who was struggling most of last season. The thing is, players struggle for different reasons, and sometimes all it takes is a decision that could present a bit of a risk in the long run. Although in this case it was clearly worth it.

With a soft sigh, Connor adds, “Now I just gotta make sure that I don’t fuck this up.”

“You won’t,” Alex says.

“Okay, but–”

“Waldo,” Alex interrupts, as gently as he can, “don’t do that.”

Connor makes a face.

Alex can’t say that he knows how Connor feels, and he understands that Connor appreciates it when people are honest with him, that he’s in a position where he needs to be realistic, but there comes a time where the self-doubt gets too bad and it helps when someone tells you that it’s going to be okay.

Quite frankly, Alex himself has never been a huge fan of being told that it’s going to be okay, but he’s pretty sure that it’s just because people told him at the wrong time.

“You’ll do fine,” Alex says. He’s caught bits and pieces of the Cardinals’ preseason games and he’s seen what Connor can do when he’s playing with someone he actually clicks with. Alex is maybe a little proud of himself for telling Connor to stop playing it safe and he’s glad that Connor listened to him and started trying a few things here and there that he might have not tried last season, even if it was only in practice.

Connor nods. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. Okay.” He picks up his plate again. “Hey, Alex…”

“Hm?”

“About the game on Wednesday… Just in case you–”

Connor is interrupted by Alex’s phone going off. Alex quickly grabs it. Might be an emergency at the rink, but it’s not Ashley who’s calling him. It’s Nadira.

Alex frowns as he picks up. “Nadi?”

“Alex, hey,” Nadira says. “Sorry about this, uh… You’re not at the rink, right?”

“No, I’m… hanging out with Waldo.”

Connor shoots him a quizzical look.

“Okay, good, I just wanted to…” Nadira takes a deep breath on the other end of the line. “Could I maybe come over?”

“Yeah, sure,” Alex says. “Door’s unlocked, just let yourself in.”

“Okay, cool, thank you. See you in a bit.”

Alex hangs up and shrugs when Connor is still looking at him like he’s hiding all the secrets in the universe from him. “Nadi’s coming over.”

“Oh,” Connor only says and goes back to eating his dinner.

Admittedly, Alex is mildly curious. Nadira has been around. Mostly she’s come over with Ashley, but one time a few weeks ago Alex got home from the rink and found Nadira on the couch with Waldo, watching  _Sleepless in Seattle_  and eating all the ice cream they were able to find in the freezer. Alex didn’t tell them that there was more downstairs. He didn’t want to be responsible for any ice cream overdoses.

Alex is well aware that Nadira is having a hard time right now. Her colleagues seem to be winning the Greatest Douchebag award on a daily basis and she’s clearly not happy with the stories she gets to write, although she has been doing a few pieces about the Panthers and that at least seems to be keeping her somewhat happy, but every time she comes over to Alex’s house or to the rink, she usually spends a few minutes grumbling and looking miserable.

Nadira shows up some twenty minutes later, sneaking into the living room like she isn’t sure if she’s allowed to be there, even though Alex told her that it’s fine for her to just come inside. Byron, formerly dozing next to the couch, gets up to sniff her hand and to give Nadira the  _please pet me, no one’s scratched my ears in at least three human years_  look and Nadira promptly gives in to it.

“Hey, guys,” Nadira says.

Connor points at her Ravens shirt. “Wrong team.”

“Listen…” Nadira points right back at him. “I love my terrible boys.”

Alex snorts. The Ravens truly were terrible last season. It got them the second pick in the draft lottery, but people are now expecting them to be better and Alex isn’t sure if they’ll be able to deliver. At least not with the moves they made during the off-season.

“But do you love them more than the Cardinals?” Connor asks, batting his eyelashes at her.

Nadira seems to actually consider the question for a moment. “Uh… I guess I can love you guys and the Ravens equally.”

“Ugh,” Connor says and shakes his head at her. “So, what’s the deal? Are your parents bugging you?”

Nadira sighs. “Yeah, so…” She flops into the armchair next to the couch. “Remember when I told you guys that my parents are driving me insane and that they won’t leave me alone and keep sharing their opinions about every part of my life?”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned something like that,” Connor says. “Needed a break, huh?”

“I guess. Yeah. I mean…” She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and nods at the TV. “Can you…”

Alex grabs the remote and hits pause.

Nadira takes a deep breath. “Okay, so, the thing is, I need more of an… extended break. Like…” She rolls her eyes. “I hate that I’m doing this, but… Alex, could I crash here for a bit?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. He’s offered before.

He feels bad for her. He knows what it’s like when you’re stuck in a place you want to leave more than anything. After his accident, he was stuck at home with his parents; his dad home for the summer with no team to coach, trying to make plans for his future, his mom constantly lurking around the corner, watching his every move, maybe afraid that he’d do something stupid. Not that he doesn’t still appreciate what they did for him, but on some days they made things harder for him than they had to be by trying to push him into directions he definitely didn’t want to go in.

It sounds to him like Nadira’s parents are doing something very similar, only they’re trying to hold her back from pursuing more than what she has right now.

“But, seriously,” Nadira says, “it’s totally temporary. And I’ll definitely pay rent.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Connor says.

“Shush,” Alex says. “Just don’t eat my food, okay?”

Connor nods. “That’s my job.”

“And I hope you like finding gross socks in really weird places,” Alex goes on. Connor brought a hint of chaos with him when he moved in and maybe it provokes a snide comment here and here, but in the end Alex would rather have the chaos than live on his own again.

“I left a sock on the kitchen counter  _one_  time and it was totally an accident. I was gonna take it up to my room,” Connor grumbles. He shrugs when Nadira gives him a judging look. “I stepped in something wet, okay?”

Nadira smirks. “Well, I can get a letter of recommendation from my old roomie if you need confirmation that I generally don’t leave my socks anywhere. But this is temporary. Like, super temporary. Two weeks. Three. No more than four, okay? I just need to stay in a place where I’m not under constant surveillance.”

“Whoa,” Connor says. “What happened?”

“It’s just…” Nadira shakes her head. “My mom is difficult sometimes. About not snooping through my stuff. And she’s bad at minding her own business. And she gets upset when I don’t feel like answering her questions and it’s so annoying. I feel like I’m sixteen years old and I don’t wanna spend my adult life like this.”

“You can have the other guest room,” Alex says.

His parents don’t care much. He told his mom that Connor was staying with him a few weeks ago and she was absolutely delighted. She told Alex’s dad, who grumbled something in the background. What came back to Alex was, “Your dad thinks having Connor around will be fun,” which basically translates to,  _Your dad thinks having Connor around might convince you to do something else with your life_.

This isn’t going to work out the way Alex’s dad is expecting, but it’s not like it’d matter if Alex talked to his dad about this. He’s officially turned out to be a huge disappointment because he didn’t take any of the coaching positions his dad quietly tried to get him to take. His dad thought he was ungrateful, but the fact of the matter is that Alex never asked him to find him a coaching position. He wanted to be away from it all, because at that point being so close to something he’d never have would have broken him. He doesn’t know why he’s so sure about it, but he doesn’t regret a single decision he’s made since he stopped playing hockey.

Maybe the rink isn’t his dream, but it was a good place for him to be when he felt like he didn’t have a place in the world any longer, and it still is.

“Okay,” Nadira says. She nods. “Okay.” She leans back, only to sit back up again a second later. “Yeah. So. I guess I gotta go talk to my parents.”

“You can park your car in front of the garage on the very right. I don’t really have room  _in_  the garage right now, but–”

“That’s fine,” Nadira interrupts. “This is temporary, remember?”

“Right,” Alex says.

He doesn’t care either way. Unless Nadira turns out to be the most horrible roommate the world has ever seen, Alex doesn’t mind if this ends up being a little more permanent. Just as long as he doesn’t have to deal with more sports socks in his kitchen and more disappearing leftovers.

“I have an idea,” Nadira says, distracted for a second when Byron pads over to her to put his head in her lap, tail wiping the floor when she reaches out to pat his head. “So, what if I just stay here and never go back to my parents’ house, so I never have to have a conversation about why I’m moving out.”

Connor snorts.

Alex knows that Connor, too, loves to avoid having hard conversations with his parents. His mom in particular. Alex understands. When his phone starts ringing and his dad’s name shows up, he ignores it. When it’s his mom’s name, he at least considers it. The only family member he answers his phone for is his Nana.

“Just pair it with something they’ll be happy to hear. Like…  _Hey, mom, I can’t come over for lunch on Sunday, but I can get you tickets for a game_. That way they don’t have a lot of time to be disappointed, because they’re busy being happy about something else.”

“Okay, but my parents are astoundingly hard to please. I don’t think there’s anything I could say that’d actually make them so happy that they wouldn’t be really offended that I’m moving out. Even though it has been insinuated that my mom’s friends are judging me hard for living with my parents.”

Connor shrugs. “Well, if you leave right now, you’ll only live with your parents for about ten more minutes.”

“Yeah, I’ll leave in a second,” Nadira says, looking like she has absolutely no intention of leaving in a second or a minute or even an hour.

Connor turns to smirk at Alex.

Alex smirks back at him.

As far as they’re concerned, Nardia just moved in.


	24. beginnings, Chapter 5.4

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.4**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I don’t even know how to begin to explain how this happened, but check out my take on the Cardinals’ preseason! youtube.com/watch=72hKso3jA #GoCardsGo

*

“I just feel like signing Jones for another year was a mistake,” Don says, waving his hand dismissively as he turns to consider the donuts next to the coffeemaker. “I’m by no means a hockey expert–”

That is very true as Don mostly covers baseball and soccer.

“–but they could have gotten someone better with that kind of money. Someone younger.”

The intern that Don is talking to looks like he wants to disagree but doesn’t quite know how because he’s scared that he might offend someone. His name is Charlie and Charlie wants to be Brad when he grows up. The thing is, Charlie has been making a lot of coffee and has done very little writing and Nadira is starting to feel bad for him, because making coffee is an important life skill, and so is photocopying, but at some point the kid should learn something that he wouldn’t be able to learn in any other office in the world.

“Mattie is pretty good, though,” Charlie says, clearly treading carefully, so Don won’t think he’s outright trying to contradict him. “He’s a vet, but he still brings something to the table.”

“Sure, but does he bring  _enough_  to the table, is the question,” Don says. “And I don’t think he does.”

And  _clearly_  whatever Don says is the gospel truth.

“Considering how important a guy like Matt Jones is in the locker room,” Nadira butts in, “I’m pretty sure he’s worth the money. He’s their fourth line center, nobody expects him to score thirty goals. That’s Yoshi’s job.”

Charlie nods along. “Seriously, Mattie is… well, he’s one of their alternate captains and–”

“Be that as it may,” Don says, “they could have found someone better. I’m also not so sure about the Rivera trade. Sure, he can score, but if it’s true that the kid has a drug problem–”

“It’s not,” Nadira and Charlie say at the same time.

Charlie shoots her a quick smile.

“Well, he has some sort of problem,” Don says.

“Or the Lions really wanted that first round pick,” Charlie says.

“It was a fantastic deal for the Lions,” Nadira adds. “The Lions traded their first rounder last season and they were pretty low on draft picks in general. And without Rivera in the picture they had enough cap space to re-sign Berglund  _and_  Miller. They have a bunch of great forwards, but if they’d lost Miller in particular they would have been in real trouble regarding their goaltending situation. And Berglund was a serious candidate for the Norris last season, too. They could afford to lose Rivera.”

Charlie blinks at her and it strikes her that he’s sort of looking at her like he usually looks at Brad. “Yeah,” he only says.

“Well,” Don says, and, “I suppose…” He clears his throat. “I have an interview to prepare for, so if you’d excuse me…” And with that he scurries off, but not without grabbing a donut.

“Do you cover the Cardinals with Brad?” Charlie asks.

“Uh, no,” Nadira says. “I just… used to cover hockey in New York.”

“Awesome,” Charlie says. He doesn’t ask how she ended up here, covering local sports, he’s just in awe of what she used to do. It’s kinda nice. “So, you covered the Ravens then?”

“Yeah, but also the league in general. And the Blaze.”

“Did you, like, get to meet the players?” Charlie asks, his eyes as wide as saucers now. “Like, the actual Ravens?”

“I’ve met a few of them, yeah,” Nadira says.

“Wow.”

“You should–”

“Nadira, there you are,” Brad says as he barges into the break room. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“The high school hockey article should be in your inbox,” Nadira says. She’s allowed to be in here; it’s her lunch break. Brad has no reason to act like she should be working.

“Oh, it is, it absolutely is, no worries,” Brad says. “Nadira, I’ve run into a bit of an issue. The country club over in Cedar Mills has a special event coming up in two weeks and we have an interview with their director lined up tomorrow evening. Evan was going to do it, but he’s asked for the evening off, so I need you to–”

“Brad, I’m sorry, but I can’t this time,” Nadira cuts in.

“We can definitely rearrange your schedule, so you–”

“No, I mean, I really can’t. I have plans.”

She’s been jumping in a lot, covering for pretty much everyone in the office when they suddenly needed to switch their days off. It’s not like she’s hasn’t been doing what she could. But she’s going to leave the office tomorrow at five o’clock and she’s going to head over to A&P Bank Center and she’s going to watch a hockey game.

Brad raises his eyebrows at her. “Could you possibly postpone those, uh, plans?”

“I don’t know, do you think we can get the Cardinals to postpone their home opener?” Nadira asks.

“You have tickets for the game?” Charlie asks. He sort of reminds her of an overexcited puppy.

“I do,” Nadira says.

“I see,” Brad says. “In that case…”

“Maybe Charlie here can help you out,” Nadira says, and pats Charlie’s shoulder. “I’m happy to help him figure out his questions tomorrow morning and then he can do the interview. You know how to record a conversation, right?”

Charlie nods, clearly eager to do whatever they’ll let him do.

Brad hums. “Let me think about that…” He gives Nadira a look that she can’t quite interpret. “Do you have good tickets, then?”

“Pretty good.”

“How’d you get them?” Charlie asks.

“Oh, I have a friend, who… works for the organization.” Nadira is so not going to mention that she knows Connor Walden at the office. And she sure as hell won’t mention that she now  _lives_  with Connor Walden either.

“Interesting,” Brad says. “What does your friend do? Maybe I’ve met him.”

Well. Either she keeps building her throne of lies and makes up a random person who does something insignificant that Brad won’t question or she could tell him the truth, just because she wants to see his face.

The thing is, Nadira knows that now is not the time, so she says, “Well, he’s more a friend of a friend, really. So I’m not sure what exactly he does.”

“I see,” Brad says and for some reason he looks pleased. Probably because he’s happy that Nadira doesn’t have some secret inside man at the Cardinals organization that he doesn’t know anything about. Because Brad is really the sort of person who doesn’t deal well with other people having better sources or easier access to something that he considers rightfully his. “Well, enjoy the game. Maybe you can,” he laughs, like he’s about to make the greatest joke of all time, “share your thoughts with me on Thursday.”

“Sure,” Nadira grits out and goes for a slow retreat, even though her break isn’t over yet.

As she sits down at her desk, she’s trying not to get too pissed off about that cocky laugh. That laugh said so many things. Brad doesn’t care about her opinion, not really. Because why would Nadira have anything of importance to say about that game when Brad is obviously the expert around here? She stabs a piece of paper with her pencil and spends the remainder of her lunch break being extremely unproductive and going over all the things the thinks Brad was wrong about in his recent articles.

Maybe she should start a blog after all. No one would have to know that it’s her.

But she wants people to know that it’s her. Nadira knows that the things she has to say aren’t pointless, she knows there’s substance to her musings, and she knows that if circumstances were different, she’d be getting paid to share her opinions on the Cardinals and the rest of the league.

She’s still mad when she gets home.

The house is empty and quiet. Alex is likely still at the rink even though he’s not the one who’s closing up tonight and Connor is at Josh Roy’s house for dinner.

Nadira stands in the door for a moment, staring down at the pile of dude shoes, just taking in the silence for a moment. No one’s coming out of the kitchen to ask her a dozen questions that she’s in no way prepared to answer. She can just go up to her room and seethe quietly because she’s still pissed off about Brad and she can do whatever she wants to do without anyone watching or listening.

It’s a little bit of freedom.

Honestly, she was so going to stick it out at her parents’ house. But this is easier. And sometimes it’s okay to pick the easy way out. A couple of weeks ago, she probably wouldn’t have seen moving in with Alex and Connor as a viable option, but then she kept coming over because Ashley kept inviting her and she immediately hit it off again with everyone and at some point the thought of taking Alex up on his offer – even though it was Ashley who first brought it up – didn’t seem so strange and unthinkable anymore.

On Sunday, her day off, she met Sarah for lunch and when she got home, she just snapped. Maybe it was because her mom asked her one question too many, maybe it was because her dad walked into her room without knocking again. Maybe it was because she realized that her mom would never stop, maybe it was because she realized that her room wasn’t actually her room. In any case, one of those things was the final straw. It doesn’t even matter what it was in the end.

She took matters into her own hands and stopped waiting for the universe to send the perfect apartment her way and she went over to Alex’s and asked for that room, even though she was panicking for the entire drive, because she was about to inconvenience a friend who’d only very recently walked back into her life – or maybe she walked back into his. Who knows.

She did something that would only be beneficial to her. Because, in all honestly, she isn’t the best roommate. She doesn’t cook anything more complicated than mac and cheese, she doesn’t know how to fix things around the house, and she yells a lot. Although the yelling, in this house, won’t be too much of a problem. She lives with people who understand.

Nadira goes up to her new room – it’s at the very end of the hallway to the left, in a part of the house that Alex clearly doesn’t spend much time in. He gave her a quick tour of the rooms upstairs when she brought all her stuff over on Sunday. His room, Waldo’s room, his old bedroom – “There’s just some junk in there now” – and the room his parents use when they visit, and the bathroom that she’s not sharing with anyone because both Alex and Connor have ensuites.

Quite frankly, the Goldmans’ house is ridiculous, but Nadira certainly isn’t complaining that she gets to stay here for a while. As much as she likes the gigantic TV in the living room, and the most expensive coffeemaker the world has ever seen in the kitchen, and the pool in the back, now covered for the winter, she’s still going to find her own place. Alex won’t let her pay rent.

“If the NHL player isn’t paying rent,” Alex said when Nadira brought it up, “you’re not paying rent either. Just don’t eat my food. And… word of advice, label the food you don’t want to disappear.”

Connor was sitting next to Alex with a perfectly innocent smile on his face.

Nadira certainly won’t leave any Ben & Jerry’s in the freezer without writing her name all over it.

She dumps her bag on her bed and ignores the boxes that are crammed into the corner next to the bed. The good thing is that she still only has as much stuff as somewhat comfortably fits into her car, but those boxes have remained mostly unopened ever since she left New York. She took the odd book or DVD out of them here and there, but other than that she’s barely touched them. They’re begging to be unpacked.

But she’s not going to stay here, so there’s absolutely no point. She’d just be dumping all her stuff back into those boxes sometime during the next couple of weeks. Alex did tell her to just move whatever she didn’t want out of the room and he’d put it in a box and into the basement, but Nadira feels like she’d get lulled in if she did that. She’d make this place her own. She’d end up really liking it.

She  _already_  really likes it.

So she’s not unpacking those boxes. In fact, she’ll dig through the freezer for some chicken fingers, and then she’ll grab her laptop and see if there are any new apartments in the general vicinity of her workplace.

Nadira spends about two minutes looking at apartments she can’t afford, but she can’t really concentrate. She’s still mad. To be honest, she spends way too much time being mad at Brad and she knows that there are better uses of her time and– Nadira takes a deep breath and closes the tab with the apartment listings. She’s going to start a blog.

She’s going to start a blog  _right now_.


	25. beginnings, Chapter 5.5

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.5**

 

*

**Finn Engel**  @finniescoots

when all your colleagues walk around with murder glares and work starts to feel like the hunger games…….

*

“Yeah, I mean, I guess I don’t– Sure. No, I get what you want to do, but you don’t need to– Yeah.”

Ashley sneaks into the office in the back as quietly as she can.

Alex is on the phone. Neither of them should even still be at the rink, but Alex never leaves according to schedule and today Ashley is actually grateful that he didn’t. She sits down next to the desk as Alex paces past the row of shelves on the right.

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you what to do,” Alex says, “but you could just go downstairs. There’s a room in the basement that’s full of… just hockey stuff. Like, it’s mostly my dad’s old jerseys and I guess there’s a bunch of sticks in there, and I know there’s a Cardinals banner and whatnot. It’s a bit of a mess, but if you rearrange some of the stuff and take a lamp… There’s a really bright one in the office. It’s on the desk. It might be too bright, actually. Guess you’d just have to try it.”

Ashley frowns at Alex.

He waves her off with a grin. “Yeah, just give it a try. Okay. Sure, no problem. See you later.” Alex hangs up and turns to Ashley. “Nadi is starting a vlog.”

“Oh my God, is she really doing it? That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, she’s just trying to find a good background, I guess? Good thing I have a weird hockey shrine in the basement,” Alex says. “I knew it’d come in handy at some point.”

Ashley laughs.

“I mean, technically it’s not my stuff, but whatever,” Alex goes on. He leans against the desk, head tilted. “Anyway, what are you still doing here? Your lesson’s over, right?”

“Yeah, I just talked to some parents and cleaned up some stuff,” Ashley says. That doesn’t explain why she’s still here, though.

Alex shoots her an inquiring look.

“Why are you still here?” Ashley asks, instead of talking about what she actually came here to talk about.

“Sharpened some skates. Did some administrative stuff.” Alex shrugs. “I think Sarah has everything under control, though, so I’m gonna head home when the public skate is over. I’ll just get the ice ready for the hockey team before I leave.”

Of course he will. Can’t take a chance to get on the Zamboni away from him. The public skate ends in half an hour, so that should give Ashley some time to talk Alex into helping her out. “Right, yeah.” She practiced this at home, and she’s been going over what she’d say all day. “Hey, Alex…”

“Yeah?” He holds up his phone. “Actually… one second.” He looks at the text and laughs. Two more come in as he’s looking down at his phone.

He holds it out to Ashley so she can see it as well.

 

**[Nadi]**

_Did your dad actually wear all of these jerseys?_

**[Nadi]**

_IS THIS ONE OF THE STICKS HE ACTUALLY PLAYED WITH??_

**[Nadi]**

_WHAT THE FUCK_

“I always forget about all that stuff,” Ashley says. Maybe it’s because hockey was never her number one thing, but she even tends to forget what a legend Alex’s dad really is around here. To her, he’s just a dad. The guy who used to own this rink.

Alex huffs and types out a reply as Ashley waits –  _too bad that he took all his cup rings to seattle, huh?_ “Well,” Alex says when Ashley gives him a look, “he did take what was most important to him.” He locks his phone. “So… you were saying?”

“Okay. Well.” Ashley takes a deep breath and nudges Alex. “Sit down.”

“Is everything okay?” Alex asks. He doesn’t sit down.

“Everything’s fine, I just need to ask you something and… Can you just sit down?”

Alex, clearly not satisfied with that answer, sits down behind his desk. “Just tell me what’s going on, because you’re looking anxious and shifty and it’s making me nervous, because I’m starting to suspect that you’re about to ask me to help you hide a body.”

Ashley grins. “Would you?”

“Ash… What’s wrong?”

Whatever. She’ll start with the easy thing. “Right, so, two things. First of all, I need you on November 6th. I also need Sarah. And Waldo. Anyway, I’ve totally coordinated this, because Finn can be here that day and we’re not gonna be gone forever and Sarah and Connor don’t have games on that day, so that’s not gonna be an issue. I’ve talked to Nadi, too, and she said she can take the day off. So we’re basically all set.”

“Okay?”

Maybe Ashley should have mentioned what this is all about, but she’s glad that Alex isn’t looking so worried anymore. In fact, he looks like he’s totally willing to go along with whatever this is about. “Wedding dress,” Ashley only says.

“Oh.” Alex’s lips twitch. “Not sure if I’ll actually be helpful, but I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I need.”

“What’s the second thing?” Alex asks.

The second thing isn’t quite as easy to talk about. Ashley doesn’t have issues asking for favors when they’re small, but this is a big one. “It’s… Man, I hate this, because it’s a huge thing, but you’d totally save me with this and I’d be thankful forever, like, if there’s ever anything I can do for you in return, I totally will.”

“Ash,” Alex says, “what is it?”

“Right. Well. Remember that great wedding venue I told you about the other day? With the restaurant by the lake?”

“Yeah, it looked really nice.”

“I can’t afford it. Not in a million years.”

Alex makes a face.

“So, I’ve been looking into alternatives,” Ashley goes on before Alex can even say anything. Because if she gives Alex too much time to think about how he could help her, he might offer to lend her some money and that’s absolutely not what she wants. “And I’ve been looking at all these websites and suggestions and, you know, backyards are pretty common, and it’s nice, like, you can put lights on trees and all that, but there’s always the weather, you know? You’d need a tent, just in case, but then you’d also need enough room for a tent and we don’t have enough room for a tent. To be honest, we don’t have enough room in general. It’d be a tight squeeze. I do like the backyard idea, though. Our parents’ backyards aren’t big enough either and it’s such a mess, and I don’t wanna bug you with this, but…” Ashley sighs. She’s not getting anywhere.

The great thing about Alex is that he’s some sort of freaky mind reader. “You… want to get married in my backyard?” Alex asks tentatively.

“Essentially that’s what I was getting at, yeah,” Ashley says. “I can pay for it and I’ll take care of everything, you won’t have to do a thing, but I’d literally invite people to your house and I’m not sure if you’d want that.”

“I’d have to ask my mom, because my parents technically still own the house, but…” Alex shrugs. “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. You know, my mom used to have all those garden parties and stuff, and my dad had his Cup parties…” Alex trails off and shifts a stack of paper on the desk an inch to the right. “Anyway, that backyard is a tried and tested location.”

“Okay,” Ashley says, nodding slowly, “okay, good, thank you. So much. That’s one thing I don’t have to worry about anymore.” She takes a deep breath. Part of her already knew that Alex would let her have his backyard, but planning this wedding is actually killing her and at this point she’s expecting every single thing to go wrong. “All right… I should head home. But, for real, thank you.”

“Sure,” Alex only says.

Ashley waves as she heads for the door and Alex waves back at her. She’s almost out the door when Alex says, “Hey, Ash…”

She stops in her tracks. “Yeah?”

“You should take Jamie to the game tomorrow. There’s gonna be a leftover ticket.”

Ashley doesn’t have to ask why. “You’re not going.”

“No, I just…” Alex taps his fingers on the desk. “There’s too much stuff to do and someone should be here with Finn.”

“Alex…”

Finn can definitely handle locking up the rink and being short-staffed for a couple of hours, especially in the evening when all that’s going on are private lessons and hockey practice.

“I’ve already talked to Waldo,” Alex says. “It’s fine. I’ll just go some other time.”

But he won’t. Ashley almost asks him if he at least told Connor the truth or if he gave him the same bullshit excuse he just gave her. In the end, she doesn’t, because it’s none of her business, but what Alex is doing here… it’s frustrating. He always says it’s fine, but then a day like today comes around and Ashley remembers that he isn’t, not really, and one day it’s all going to catch up to him. So Ashley only says, “Okay.” She doesn’t even try to hide her disapproval.

“Don’t give me that look,” Alex grumbles.

“Yeah, I am. I’m totally giving you that look.” Ashley crosses her arms. “He really wanted you to come.”

“I know that.”

“So why aren’t you going?”

“Because…” Alex shrugs. “Because I’m just not going.”

Well, if he wants to be like  _that_. “Fine, okay… Have fun sitting around at the rink, then,” she says and stalks off. She doesn’t even know why she’s so angry.

No, she does know. Alex isn’t just sitting around at the rink. He’s  _hiding_  here. He won’t go anywhere and he won’t do anything, and, sure, maybe she doesn’t know exactly what it’s like for him, what it’s like to think you’ll spend your life doing something and then losing it in the blink of an eye, but she understands it well enough to know that hiding is not the answer.

“Sure,” Alex says, “I will.”

Ashley barely hears it; she’s already stomping down the hallway.

When she passes Finn, who’s manning the rental skates booth, he takes one look at her as she walks by and calls, “Whoa, Ash, what’s with the murder eyes?”

Ashley directs the murder eyes his way and leaves without replying.


	26. beginnings, Chapter 5.6

**beginnings**

 

**Chapter 5.6**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Who’s ready for some hockey?! #GoCardsGo

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Tonight’s lines:

Eriksson – Roy – Conrad

Hase – Rivera – Hellström

Christensen – Cooper – Petrov

Rogers – Jones – Barnard

 

D-pairs:

Yang – Novak

Santana – Walden

Phillips – Russell

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Grenier is starting in goal.

*

Nick is always on autopilot when he gets ready for a game.

It’s a different city, a different team, a different locker room, but hockey is still hockey and even the things that aren’t the same have quickly become familiar to him during the preseason. His gear is still his gear, his skates are tied the same – the right one first. The jersey is red instead of black and gold, but it has his name on the back above the 13. It’s the same game and that’s what he tells himself when he gets up for warm-ups.

The locker room is abuzz with the hum of voices. Everyone’s itching to hit the ice. It’s starting, finally. It was a long summer for him. And, sure, it’s technically not the first game of the season, but it’s the first game that counts. The numbers that are on the scoreboard at the end of the third period matter.

Nick knows that it’s only one game, but he’s always had trouble taking things one step at a time. He thinks about the 81 games that will follow after this one, he thinks about the standings, about the spot the Cardinals will have to be in to advance to the playoffs. He shakes off the thought.  _Tonight_. Right now there’s only one game that matters and it’s the one they’re about to play.

He wants to do well.

And it’s not that he hasn’t always wanted to do well, but he’s one of the new kids and he needs to make sure that the Cardinals don’t end up regretting this trade. They gave up an excellent pick as well as an excellent player to get him.

Before they leave the locker room, Connor comes over to him, holds up his fist, and whispers, “If we’re up by ten goals in the third, are we gonna try to bounce the puck off Swanson?”

“No,” Nick says with the most deadpan voice he can manage.

“Yeah, I figured.” Connor grins. “Would suck to miss the rest of the season because we got stabbed by an angry goalie.”

Swanson isn’t actually as murderous as people keep saying. Nick’s talked to him here and there, and they were on the same team at last season’s All Star game, and he’s a perfectly nice guy. Admittedly, he does have that look on his face that goalies in particular seem to have perfected. “Swanson actually is like a swan,” one of Nick’s former teammates once said. “He’s evil. And he’ll hiss and bite when you get too close.”

Nick grins back at Connor and bumps his fist.

He’s not overly superstitious but he tries to remember the things he did before games, just in case they end up making an impact, and he has his routines. He eats the same thing every time. Always pasta and chicken. He always puts on the right skate first. Always uses black stick tape. And then there’s the pucks he throws over the glass before every game. Always three.

It’s something he started doing because he has this vivid memory of one of Alex’s dad’s teammates throwing a puck over the glass for him, and he still remembers how special it felt all these years later. The puck is somewhere in a box in his room at his parents’ house now, but for years it was on the windowsill next to his bed where he could always look at it, and no matter how much more hockey knickknack accumulated over the years, it was always the one that meant the most to him.

As they skate out onto the ice, they’re greeted by a sea of red around the glass. It’s one of those things he’s used to by now. No more black and gold. He hurls a puck at the net and then skates past the glass, not yet paying any mind to the people behind it.

Connor comes to a halt next to him about halfway during warm-ups, nodding at the glass across from them. “Nadi’s here. Oh, and Sarah.”

Nick can see them. Sarah is whispering something to Nadira, who has her phone out, probably taking a picture of him and Connor. Nick makes a point in looking extra grumpy just for the hell of it.

“Ashley and her fiancé are here as well. You remember Jamie?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

“Guess they’re getting food or something,” Connor says with a shrug. Someone bangs on the glass and Connor turns around and shushes them. A bunch of kids behind them cheer.

Nick snorts. “Seriously?”

“Hey, we’re having a conversation here,” Connor says and turns around again to wave at the kids and they start cheering again. He gives Nick a nudge. “They love me.”

“They sure do,” Nick says, and he means it. The fans loved Connor on every single team he was on and it’s perfectly understandable why. He just has a way with people. Nick glances back over at Nadira and Sarah. They’re taking a selfie now, and he can see the numbers on the backs of the jerseys they’re wearing. Sarah is wearing a Roy jersey from a few seasons ago and Nadira is wearing a brand new Walden jersey that already has a black squiggle on the white 4 on the back. “Did you sign Nadi’s jersey?”

“’Course I did,” Connor says. “I have  _one_  fan, Nick, how could I not?”

Nick laughs and skates away, shaking his head, his eyes now on the signs that people are holding up. He picks up the first puck and makes for the glass on the other side, where Sarah and Nadira are standing as well. There’s a little girl in a bright red tutu, holding up a  _Welcome to Hartford #13_ sign. Nick taps against the glass, holds up the puck and points at her. Her mom catches it for her and hands it over and the little girl bounces up and down, almost crumpling her sign in the process, and that’s exactly the kind of excitement he was hoping for.

The second puck ends up in the hands of a girl who’s here for her eleventh birthday, the third one goes to a tiny kid in a huge Rivera jersey. He never does more than three. That’s the end of his routine. If he sees anyone else he thinks should get a puck, he usually nudges one of his teammates in the right direction. Santana is also big on handing out pucks – “They call me Santa for a reason, you know?”

Before he leaves the ice, Nick sees that Ashley is now standing with Sarah and Nadira, Jamie in tow. He waits for Connor to approach and asks, “Where’s Goldie?”

“At the rink,” Connor says with a shrug. “He didn’t feel like coming.”

Nick isn’t sure if he understands. If he was in Alex’s shoes, there’s a chance that he’d never want to set foot in a rink ever again. But that’s not Alex. Alex loves hockey more than anything else in the world and he should be here tonight. He should do more than just work at that rink. He should be skating. He should be playing, even if it’s not in a professional league. 

With a sigh, Nick picks up one of the pucks and takes it into the locker room with him. First regular season game with a new team. He still has a puck from his first NHL game, and this one seems equally important. 

When the roster is announced ahead of the game, and Nick hears his name echoing around the arena, he’s almost surprised by the roar that follows. He knows that people somehow felt like he and Connor came back home and he hasn’t done a single interview where he wasn’t asked how it feels to be playing for the team he grew up watching.  _It’s special_ , is what he said every single time, and it is, but he didn’t expect for people to take to him so quickly. Not with the rumors floating around.

He knows how upset the fans were when the Cardinals’  beloved longtime second line center Freddie Bergman signed with the Grizzlies, and now Nick is here and he’s supposed to fill those shoes. Maybe they were more willing to accept him with how disappointed they were when Bergman left.

Nick takes a deep breath.

There’s an excitement in the air that comes with new beginnings.

When Nick hits the ice for his first shift of the regular season, he knows it’ll be a new beginning for him, too. He’s playing with Hase, fondly called Bunny in the locker room, and Hellström, equally fondly called Satan. He gets along well with both of them, but Hellström is the one Nick really clicks with off the ice. Maybe that’s because they’ve been on the same team before, because they already know each other. He gets an assist on Hellström’s first goal of the season. He gets another assist one period later when he’s on the Cardinals’ power play squad and Yoshi scores his first of the season.

The assist he’s most excited about, though, is the one on Yoshi’s second goal. Nick isn’t even on the ice, but he gets to watch from the bench as Connor Walden gets his first assist as a Cardinal. His first assist since January if Nick remembers correctly.

When Connor is back on the bench, Nick reaches over Bunny to give Connor’s head a pat.

It’s a new beginning for Connor, too.

*

“What are you still doing here?”

Alex turns off the volume on his laptop and looks up. Finn is leaning in the doorway to the back office, staring at him with raised eyebrows. Silently judging.

“It’s Wednesday,” Finn goes on. “Your day off. You’ve been here since this afternoon.”

“I know,” Alex only says.

“Uh-huh… I happened to notice that you arrived right after Ashley left. Almost like you didn’t want to run into her. And now you’re still here, almost like you think that I can’t handle locking a couple of doors and turning off the lights.”

“Come on, you know I trust you with this,” Alex says gruffly. This isn’t about Finn being here on his own. Public skate ended half an hour ago, so now it’s just the hockey team that’s still around. Emmy and Lisa who help out with the concession stand and the skate rentals are both gone and there’s really absolutely no reason for Alex to still be here.

“Okay, yeah, I know that you trust me, but that makes it even weirder that you’re here,” Finn says and slowly walks into the office. “Everyone else is at the game.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, regarding Finn for a moment. Finn was already working here when Alex took over the rink. He’s been a good friend. Alex used to seek him out on the bad days, because he could talk to him without being afraid that he might say too much. “They’re at the game. And I’m here. Being a terrible friend.”

Finn grins and comes over, pushes the phone and an empty cup out of the way and sits on the table. He glances at Alex’s laptop where the Cardinals and the Ravens are lining up for a faceoff. “Do tell me more.”

“Waldo invited me to come to the game,” Alex says.

“And?”

“And I’m not at the game.”

“Yeah, but I already knew that,” Finn says.

“I haven’t been to a pro game ever since before I stopped playing,” Alex says slowly. “And I know that nothing will change if I do go, it’s just…”

Finn is silent for a moment, waits for him to maybe finish that thought. When he doesn’t, Finn says, “How is a Cardinals game different from watching the guys play here at the rink? I mean, other than the level. It’s still just hockey.”

“I don’t know,” Alex says, but maybe he does know. It came up with his therapist some time ago and he knows what the bottom line is. He just hates saying it out loud. “I think I’m scared of how I’ll feel when I’m there.”

“Like you’re supposed to be playing and not watching?” Finn asks. “Might not be a nice feeling.” He pauses for a moment. “Might be something you should get over with.”

Alex huffs.

“Just saying…”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “I should have gone. But if I’d gone… Ashley would have been… She would have turned it into a big deal and she would have been worried and she’s really bad at hiding when she’s worried. And then there’s Sarah and Nadira… and they all know that I haven’t been to a game in ages and it just seemed like a bad idea for me to go.”

“Well,” Finn nudges Alex’s thigh with his leg, “there are a bunch of other games you could go to instead. I hear the hockey happens pretty frequently.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and closes his laptop.

“Hey, don’t look like that… You didn’t go, it’s already done, and now you feel like crap. Well, tough luck. Do better next time.”

“Why does your life advice always sound so rough?” Alex asks.

“Because life is fucking rough, my guy.” Finn slides off the desk and leans down. “Wanna hang around until I’m done and…” He shrugs. “Come to my place and reminisce about the good old times later?”

Alex rolls his eyes. “No.”

“I figured,” Finn says. “Just thought you could use a pick-me-up.”

Alex stands up and grabs his laptop. “We both know that it’s not really what we want, so what’s the point?”

“If you’re insinuating that I’m trying to distract myself from my actual feelings for a person who may or may not be playing hockey in this very building right now…” Finn takes a deep breath. “Then you’re absolutely right, but I don’t wanna hear it, okay?”

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Alex says, “but maybe you should ask him out.” Andy would say yes, no doubt about it. Finn, once you get past how grumpy he is before noon on any given day, is a great guy and he needs a guy like Andy Daniels, who’s pretty much a walking ray of sunshine.

“What, ask him out? Like a normal person?”

“Yeah.”

“Alex, no.” Finn shakes his head. “What if he says yes? What if it works out? What if I end up being happy? Am I ready for that? I think not.”

Alex sighs and puts his laptop into his messenger bag. “Maybe,” he says, not even trying to hold back a smile, “it’s something you need to get over with.”

“Ugh… smartass.” Finn gives him a nudge. “You gonna be okay?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? What kind of answer is that?”

“A true one,” Alex says.

Finn laughs and gives him a tight hug. “Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.”

They part ways in the hallway, Finn heading to the stands to watch hockey practice, and possibly to spend some time staring at Andy, Alex heading for the door, Byron in tow.

When he gets home, he watches the rest of the game. He turns it on just in time to see Connor get his first point of the season.

Alex is well aware that there’s no point in staying up and waiting for Connor, because the Cardinals will likely go out and celebrate after that win, but he still sneaks about the house and eventually ends up in the kitchen, baking pumpkin bread. Maybe he should have gone home with Finn after all.

He did a lot, back when he’d just graduated college and started working at the rink. Patty was still in charge and Alex often enough ended up working with Finn, and for the first time in a long, long while Alex had someone he could talk to again. Finn was just so openly who he wanted to be. It was easy for Alex to open up to him, easier than it had ever been before. Sometimes you do meet people at exactly the right time.

Back then, going home with Finn was convenient for both of them. Finn had just broken up with the guy he’d been dating for four years and he needed a distraction, and Alex, well, he did, too, more than anything.

They eventually grew out of it. No hard feelings.

Connor doesn’t get home too late.

Alex is still up, watching TV, Byron on the couch with him, head in Alex’s lap. Connor sneaks into the living room, very slowly at first, until he notices that Alex is actually awake.

“Hey,” Connor says and flops down on the couch with him.

“Hey,” Alex says. “Nice assist.”

Connor grins broadly. “You watched?”

“Yeah.”

“Cool,” Connor says.

“It was a good game,” Alex goes on.

“It was,” Connor agrees.

Alex clears his throat. “I’m sorry I didn’t come.”

“I told you this morning,” Connor says, “it’s okay.”

“Is it really?”

“Yeah…” Connor reaches over and gives Alex’s shoulder a squeeze. “You’ll come to another one. When you really feel like being there.”

Alex nods. “I will.”

It feels like a promise he can keep.  


	27. late nights, Chapter 6.1

**late nights**

 

**Chapter 6.1**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

quiet night on the couch with the best boy :) instagram.com/p/7heMD4n

*

“Ash, you want anything?”

“Yeah, can you get me some Doritos?” Ashley says. “And a brownie. And maybe the peanut butter M&Ms?”

“Anything else?” Jamie asks, and it’s supposed to be a joke, but, yeah, Ashley could think of some other things. It’s probably too much for him to carry, though.

“My phone,” Ashley replies.

“Okay.”

“It’s in my bag. On the table in the hallway.”

“Right.”

“And can you get me a Coke?”

“Sure.”

“And–”

Jamie appears in the doorway that leads to the kitchen. “Are you just gonna live on the couch now and never go into the kitchen ever again?”

Ashley points at Hendrix, who’s fast asleep in her lap. “I can’t.”

Jamie grins. He understands. “I’ll be right back.”

He returns with everything Ashley asked for a few minutes later, plus some chocolate and a bowl of ice cream that was probably for him. It ends up in Ashley’s hands when she looks at it for a second too long. Jamie dumps everything else that was in his arms on the coffee table.

“So, what’s the plan?” Jamie asks.

“Movie.”

“Good plan.”

“You wanna pick the movie?” Ashley asks. She knows for a fact that she picked last time, and the time before that. Last time Jamie acted like he’d forgotten whose turn it was, because he knew that there was this new release on Netflix that Ashley really wanted to see. It’s definitely his turn.

Jamie shrugs. “Pick something. I know you were mad this morning. Mad people get to pick.”

“I’m gonna pick  _Dirty Dancing_.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Yeah, I totally will,” Ashley says. “For real.”

“I’m not sure if hate-watching  _Dirty Dancing_  is the answer,” Jamie says, but he still gets up to find the movie on their shelf.

Ashley has a complicated relationship with it. She loved it when she was younger and has seen it so often that she knows the lines, but she’s arrived at a point where it actually annoys her. She still watches it when she’s had a bad day, but it’s like a favorite song that she’s listened to too many times. She has to be in the right mood for it.

She’s definitely in the mood today.

On Saturday, she teaches two group lessons in the morning, followed by a private lesson, followed by another group lesson, followed by two more private lessons. It’s a long day, full of little kids who are really excited about skating, and Ashely also loves skating, so Saturday is usually one of her favorite days, but the kid who takes the last private lesson of the day insisted on being difficult today and it ruined Ashley’s mood at light speed.

Ashley isn’t a tough coach.

Okay, she is when she has to be, but she knows how important it is to enjoy being on the ice. It shouldn’t feel like a chore. It’s hard work, yes, and it’s not always easy, but at the end of the day you have to want to be on the ice to compete.

Your heart has to be in it.

And that girl… Ashley isn’t sure if she wants to be there anymore. There are two skaters in her group lessons that are interested in private lessons, but at this point no one has any slots.

Most instructors work at the rink part-time. They have other jobs. Ashley is the only one who actually spends a good forty-five hours a week at the rink, monitoring public skates and teaching lessons. Sometimes even more. The point is that she can’t take on any more skaters for private sessions, but she’d rather take on someone new than keep teaching someone who doesn’t really want to be there.

Maybe it’s just a phase; not everyone is happy all the time. People have bad days. But Ashley has a feeling that this is a case of  _the parents want one thing and the kid wants something completely different_. It’s not an easy thing to deal with, because in the grand scheme of things it’s none of her business. But Ashley has always been bad at staying out of other people’s business.

“Ash?”

“Sorry, what?”

Jamie laughs softly. “Never mind.”

Ashley leans against him, careful not to disturb Hendrix, who’s still sleeping in her lap. “Did you…” She sighs. “I’m sorry I’m a grump today.”

“That’s okay,” Jamie says and kisses the top of her head.

“We should have gone out for dinner,” Ashley says. “You love going out for dinner.”

“Yeah, but… Ash. Just relax. Watch the movie.”

“But…” She flicks a crumb off her blanket. “We didn’t do anything fun this weekend.”

“We don’t have to do fun stuff  _every_  weekend.”

“I know, but they probably don’t even remember us at  _Giuliana’s_. What if they start to hate us and don’t give us the nice table by the window anymore?”

“We ordered pizza and an insane amount of breadsticks from there on Wednesday, I’m sure they do remember us,” Jamie says. “It’s okay.”

Ashley hums. “So we’re officially boring, huh?”

“Honestly, we’ve never been very exciting.”

“Yeah, but spending basically all weekend at home…”

Jamie laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with that. But…” He trails off, thinking. “How about we go out for dinner next weekend? And it’ll be a date. And not boring in the slightest.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Ashley says.

Truth be told, Ashley didn’t do anything out of the ordinary all week, but she needs a lazy, boring Saturday night. She had a bunch of friends over for a belated birthday party last weekend and she has a wedding dress to pick next week and there’s a lengthy discussion about cake looming on the horizon, so a lazy weekend in between will help keep her sane.

All her friends are probably out doing fun Saturday night things. She didn’t even ask, because she didn’t feel like going anywhere anyway. So she’ll sit here with her boy, and her cat, and her two other cats watching them from the cat tree, and she’ll watch  _Dirty Dancing_.

Being boring is exactly what she needs.

*

“You know, I’ve done this a billion times, but…” Nadira stops in the middle of her sentence and looks around the living room, her eyes eventually settling on Connor. “Are you  _knitting_?”

Connor gives her the same look that he always gives people when they act all scandalized about him knitting. He’s well aware that he’s not part of the usual demographic – grandma’s who are, like, 80 – but he likes it, okay? It calms him down. It makes him happy.

So he knits.

He knits at home after a stressful game, and on the plane when he’s on the road with the team, because he gets nervous on planes. It distracts him from thoughts about how likely it is that he’ll die in a plane crash. The guys in Denver chirped him endlessly about the knitting, but only until he started giving away all the hats and socks and scarves he was making. Honestly, there’s only so many hats and socks and scarves one person can wear.

“Good for you,” Nadira says. “What’s that gonna be?”

“A hat. Cardinals colors. It’s for Nick. You can have one too if you promise that you’ll wear it.”

“Oh, I’d totally wear it,” Nadira says.

“You off to work?” Connor asks. They all live wildly different lives – he got home from the Cardinals’ practice rink about an hour ago, now Nadira is leaving. Alex has been at the rink all day and he’s closing up tonight, so Connor is in for a quiet evening at home.

He did think about hitting up a few of his teammates and asking them if they want to head out for dinner, but in the end he decided that just hanging out at home probably won’t be so bad for him. So he’s sitting here, and he’ll knit and eat, and watch the rest of the Hawks game, which is now drawing to a close. He has to check up on Wilder every now and then.

Wilder is doing just fine. He scored two goals and the Hawks are five minutes away from winning.

“Yep,” Nadira replies, her smile broad. “Off to the Panthers game. Doesn’t feel like work, to be honest. It’s nice when it’s like that.”

“Yeah, it really is.”

“What are you up to tonight?” Nadira asks. “Gonna hang out with Nick?”

“Nah, not tonight. He said he already had plans.”

He’s been hanging out with Nick quite a bit. At Nick’s place. Because he still doesn’t know what the situation with Nick and Alex is, and Connor doesn’t feel like it’s a good idea to get involved. He won’t just invite Nick over. So he went to Nick’s house, that huge, empty house, and Nick cooked them dinner and they watched movies, because Nick isn’t a video game kind of guy, and they talked about stuff. It was mostly stuff that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, but Connor likes talking to Nick about things that don’t really matter, because that’s what happens before you talk about the things that do matter.

“You could always come to the game with me,” Nadira says.

Connor looks down at his knitting. He needs the night off, but he also wants to see Sarah play. He’ll get another chance, he’s sure, but this really would be a great opportunity.

“I get it,” Nadira says before Connor can make up his mind. “You need a break. Take a break. But I will drag you to one of those games, I swear.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to  _drag_  me,” Connor says.

“Excellent. Ah…” Nadira bends down pick up a polka-dotted fountain pen. “I was looking for that one. Dee gave it to me on my first day of work.”

“Is it lucky?”

Nadira looks down at it and makes a face. “It was.”

“Not anymore?”

With a shrug, Nadira says, “It’s taking a bit of a break at the moment,” and stuffs it into her bag. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I get to cover the Panthers, which is great, but the only reason I get to cover them is because Brad thinks they’re not worth his time, which makes me angry.” She takes a deep breath and whispers, “Fuck, he makes me so angry.”

“I think I’ve seen him around. He was asking Nick stupid questions.”

Nadira rolls her eyes. “Of course he was.”

Connor has never talked to him and he probably won’t any time soon. He’s not the kind of player that reporters want to talk to. He’s had two more assists since the beginning of the season, which isn’t bad, but it’s also not particularly noteworthy. He does end up on the Cardinals’ Snapchat a little more often; people seem to be enjoying that, so their social media guy keeps sneaking up on him.

The good thing is that he’s been blocking shots, he’s been keeping the puck out of the net more often than not, and that’s what he’s here for. He’s starting to feel more confident and Santana is the best partner he could wish for. They understand each other; they communicate well on the ice, and off, and it works, and Connor is less scared now. He’s really, actually staying.

He understands what Nadira means when she says that it’s nice when your job doesn’t really feel like work.

“Well, I’d better be off,” Nadira says. “See you around, kiddo.”

“See you,” Connor says and waves at her as she strides out the door. “Maybe the lucky pen isn’t working right now,” he mumbles to Byron, who’s chilling on the couch with him, “but it will. It totally will.”

He knows, because things weren’t going his way, but now they are, and someday soon, things will be going Nadira’s way, too. He likes the way she writes. She isn’t unnecessarily harsh, doesn’t make outrageous claims just for clicks, doesn’t just state the facts but also explains them. She knows what she’s talking about.

She also makes those videos.

About the Cardinals. About  _his_  team.

And Connor so wants to know what she has to say about them, but for some reason he feels like he should be asking for permission before he watches one of them. Then again, those videos are out there. On the internet. Accessible to whoever wants to watch them.

Connor grabs his laptop off the coffee table, where it was hanging out with a bunch of empty takeout containers, a bag of Doritos, a book Alex has been reading for like a month, a puck, a pair of gloves, some chocolate wrappers, and Alex’s favorite mug. No wonder Nadira lost her pen on that table.

He pulls up YouTube and finds Nadira’s channel. She made a video about every game the Cardinals have played so far. Connor clicks on the latest one, last night’s 5-2 win against the Seals. Nadira uploaded it not too long ago; she must have recorded it while Connor was at practice.

And she clearly recorded that video downstairs, in Alex’s dad’s hockey room. When Connor was a kid, there were Cup rings in there and he got to look at them once and he’ll never in his life forget that. It was a magical place.

Now the rings and the Olympic medals and the trophies are gone. All that’s left are a few jerseys, old Cardinals merchandise, and whatever else Alex’s dad doesn’t want or need in Seattle. Connor has a few old jerseys too, but they all fit in his closet. He has a puck for his first point, and then the puck for his first goal in the league. They both fit on the little shelf above his desk.

Yeah, so he’s unpacked. He bought a few more pillows and put up some pictures and now his room is really  _his_  room and he’s not going anywhere any time soon and he finally feels like he can breathe. Part of him is still waiting for someone to tell him that he can’t play with Santa anymore, because Santa’s so much better than him, but that’s not going to happen.

They’re a team already. The other day, Santa punched a guy in the face for him, because he shoved Connor a little too hard for his taste and when they were waiting to board the plane to go to Florida and Connor fell asleep – yeah, he should know better, but he was really fucking tired – Santa found a pen somewhere and wrote  _David Santana’s #1 fan_  on Connor’s arm and posted it on his Instagram. Connor loves the guys he gets to play with.

Anyway. Nadira is saying things about that team he loves so much, and for now she’s talking about the Cardinals’ first goal, but not everything she says is going to be positive. They did allow two goals.

And as soon as Nadira mentions his name for the first time – “…and Santana and Walden were on the ice for that” – Connor hits pause.

Okay. This was fun for two minutes. But he really shouldn’t be watching this. He doesn’t want to hear Nadira break down how he and Santa didn’t manage to keep that puck away from the net. “I can’t watch this,” Connor says to Byron, because he’s the only one around to listen to him.

Byron only nudges his hand, but doesn’t otherwise offer any advice.

“Whatever,” Connor mumbles and closes YouTube. Those videos are none of his business and he knows that Nadira would hate it if she knew that he even watched two minutes and fifteen seconds. On TV, the Hawks just scored the empty netter. Connor pats Byron’s head. “You wanna watch  _The Princess Bride_ after this?”

Byron nudges his hand again. Of course he does. He’s a good boy.


	28. late nights, Chapter 6.2

**late nights**

 

**Chapter 6.2**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Two entire days without Cardinals hockey? Check out the new episode of #CardinalsTV to get you through the weekend!

*

When Nadira has a particularly bad day at work, she always remembers Dee, standing in their kitchen back in New York, wearing her pajamas, while Nadira left early in the morning for work, bluntly saying, “Honestly, your job sucks.”

Long hours, early mornings, late nights, working on weekends, that was all part of the deal for her and it still is. It doesn’t bother her and it never did. She got to write about what she loves and, sure, it wasn’t always perfect, but her job in New York was the dream. It was what she always wanted.

The  _Gazette_  is not what she always wanted.

Now that the Panthers are playing their second game of the season, though, and Nadira is at the game, not in a jersey, but in her best suit, taking notes for the questions she’ll ask the players later, her job at the Gazette is starting to feel a lot more like what she wants. It feels like she’s back where she always wanted to be. It’s not New York. It’ll never be New York. But it doesn’t feel like the end of the world anymore.

The Panthers lost their first game of the season. It was close, but it was a loss nonetheless. Nadira felt bad for Sarah, for everyone on the Panthers, but she’s here as a journalist and not as a fan, so objectivity is the key.

It’s really too bad that the Panthers don’t play as often as the Cardinals, because Nadira would love to do this several times a week, but she’ll take the weekly hockey games and whatever else Brad throws at her. It’s better than no hockey at all.

She takes notes as the Panthers steadily score one goal after the other and Sarah keeps out every shot she’s faced with. The puck trickles past her with five minutes to go in the third period, but it doesn’t matter in the end. The Panthers already have five goals on the board and they score another before the game is over.

Nadira talks to Bianca Richardson and Theresa Wong after the game because they scored two goals each, even though Brad insists that it’s completely unnecessary to interview the girls, because Nadira’s article “won’t be all that long anyway.” Nadira likes to add some quotes to her articles, though, and she likes talking to the team, and she respects these ladies and what they do, so sticking around and asking a few questions is the least she can do.

Sarah finds her as she’s putting away her phone, a big smile on her face. “Nadi, hey,” she says. “Some of the girls and I are going to  _Giuliana’s_  later and then maybe to the bar. We thought you might wanna join us. As a friend. Not as a journalist.”

Nadira doesn’t have to ask which bar. It’s the one that’s right across the street from Sarah and Nessie’s apartment. There’s no other bar in Cedar Mills. “I mean, I have to finish my article first, but…”

“Yeah, finish your article, say great things about me, and then join us. You can crash at our place if you want to.”

“Okay, yeah, I’ll… do that.”

Is it a conflict of interest if she’s friends with the people she’s supposed to write about? Nah. She wrote good articles about the Ravens back in New York  _and_  she was a fan. Granted, she didn’t go out drinking with the players, but she knows how to be objective, even when she constantly hangs out with the players. Anyway, they can show some bias towards their local teams.

Nadira tries not to rush the article, so she doesn’t make it to  _Giuliana’s_. When she gets to the bar, she has absolutely no trouble finding Sarah and her teammates. They’re in a booth in the back – Sarah and Nessie, and Saila, the Panther’s other goalie, and Stephanie, whose brother is on the Cardinals’ roster, and a girl that Nadira doesn’t recognize. It’s Nessie who waves her over.

She’s greeted by a round of cheers when she sits down and is immediately handed a shot of something that looks suspiciously like tequila.

“Nadi, you know everyone, right?” Sarah says. “Nessie, Saila, Steph, and this is Steph’s girlfriend, Anna.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nadira says to Anna, who waves at her, her smile big enough to tell the story of all the tequilas that have already been consumed at this table.

“We’re drinking to our first win of the season,” Nessie says. She nods at Nadira. “I know you’re here as our friend, but just to be safe… Everything that is said and done here is off the record.”

Nadira picks up her tequila. “Of course.”

*

Nick was going to spend his Saturday evening watching games to see if there was anything that might inspire him, anything he needs to practice, but when he turns on the Grizzlies game, he instantly knows that watching games is not enough.

Practice didn’t go well for him today. He hasn’t recorded a single point since last weekend and, okay, it hasn’t been  _that_  long, but it’s been long enough for him to get antsy about it. He wants to skate. He has the day off tomorrow, but he wants to skate  _tonight_. He wants to do something and it has to be more than just sitting on his couch.

Nick doesn’t call Alex before he grabs his equipment and drives to the rink. Because if he asked Alex if he could swing by, Alex would say no.

And he knows that he’s Nick Rivera and that he could go to any rink in the area and pay them for ice time and he’d be able to skate all evening and he wouldn’t have to argue with Alex first, but he sort of wants to argue with Alex. Actually, he wants to  _talk_  to Alex and figure out how many more times he has to apologize before Alex will have an actual conversation with him.

He sits in the car for a moment after he’s pulled into the parking lot of the Goldmans’ rink. There’s a good chance that Alex will send him away because both rinks are occupied, but it can’t hurt to try. By the looks of it, public skate is popular tonight, though. If things around here still work the way they used to work when Nick was a kid, there’ll be an outdoor rink appearing in the field beside the rink towards the end of November.

Nick grabs his equipment and hauls it all inside.

Alex is in the front office, lounging in his chair behind the window, reading a book. He looks up when Nick comes in through the door, his face motionless as he waits for Nick to approach.

“Hey,” Nick says.

Alex puts down his book. “You here for hockey practice?”

Nick glances at the rink schedule next to the front office. 

 

_Rink 1: Public Skate 6:15-9:00 PM._

_Rink 2: Open Hockey Practice 7:00-9:30 PM_. 

 

He clears his throat. “I was wondering if I could have some private ice time.”

“You can have private ice time when public skate is over,” Alex says, glancing over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. It’s 8:25, so Nick will be standing here for a little while longer.

“Okay,” Nick says and pulls out his wallet. “How much?”

Alex glares at him, like he was expecting him to leave. He digs through a drawer and pulls out a sheet of paper. “These are our rates for an hour of private ice time. Since I don’t have to cancel anything, you’re looking at about three hundred bucks.”

“Sure,” Nick says and hands over his credit card.

Alex doesn’t look delighted, but he swipes Nick’s card without a word. “I’ll take care of the ice as soon as everyone’s left. I’m guessing you want both goals?”

“Yes, please,” Nick says. “Thanks. For, uh, getting me ice time on such short notice.”

“Didn’t you have practice this morning?” Alex asks.

“I did.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at him.

“Sometimes you just,” Nick shrugs, “have to skate a little more.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. For the first time since Nick walked in here today, Alex doesn’t seem totally pissed off. He clearly doesn’t have anything else to say, though. He leans back in his chair, his eyes on Nick.

“How’s everything going?” Nick asks.

Alex shoots him an annoyed look.

“Where’s your dog?” Nick stands on his tiptoes to see if there’s a dog hiding under the desk.

“Hanging out with Waldo.”

“Of course,” Nick says. “He loves your dog. He keeps sending me pictures of him.”

“Huh,” Alex says.  

“Do you–”

Nick trails off when two guys come up the stairs from the locker rooms. They’re both carrying hockey equipment and they both simultaneously stop in their tracks when they see Nick standing next to the front office.

Alex gets up, sits on the desk and leans out the window. “Hey, guys. Leaving early today?”

One guy nudges the other they walk up to the window, both of them eyeing Nick like everyone always eyes him when they see him somewhere away from the arena. Like they aren’t sure if it’s really him. Like they can’t quite believe that they ran into him in the wild.

“Yeah, we’re… The guys… They were… Well, Mitch is in town, so we’re gonna hang out later. He’s out for dinner with Andy, but we’ll probably meet up in Andy’s basement and just… yeah… hang out,” one of the guys says, his eyes darting back and forth between Nick and Alex.

“Oh, cool,” Alex says. He turns to Nick and adds, “These are Ryan and Mateo, they play for the Vikings.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nick says.

Alex doesn’t introduce him, but it doesn’t look like he has to. Anyway, if they weren’t already sure that it’s really him, there’s also a huge equipment bag with the Cardinals logo on the floor by his feet to tip them off.

“Yeah,” Mateo says.

“Very nice,” Ryan adds. “Could we–”

Mateo elbows him in the ribs.

Ryan shoots him a disbelieving look.

Nick knows what’s going on here. He’s seen this kind of silent conversation many, many times before when people run into him and they aren’t sure if it’s okay to bother him for a photo or an autograph.

He glances at Alex, who seems to be highly amused by Ryan and Mateo’s indecision. He’s the one who eventually takes pity on them, though. “Do you guys want me to take a picture of you and Nick?”

“Sure,” Ryan says. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Nick says.

Alex snaps a couple of pictures, and Ryan and Mateo both shake Nick’s hand and wish him good luck for the rest of the season. He really does need some luck right now.

Once they’re gone, Alex clambers back off the table, his eyes fixed on Nick again.

“What?” Nick asks.

Alex shakes his head. “Nothing.”


	29. late nights, Chapter 6.3

**late nights**

 

**Chapter 6.3**

 

*

**Finn Engel**  @finniescoots

what do you do when life gives you too many lemons? do you sell them on ebay??

*

Alex tries not to focus so much on Nick, who’s sitting on the home team’s bench in full equipment, watching as Alex takes the Zamboni around the ice. This is usually his favorite thing, but now Nick is watching, waiting, and Alex feels like he’s being judged, even though Nick looks in no way impatient and is absent-mindedly picking at the tape on his stick.

He takes the Zamboni off the ice and grabs the drill for the goals. He waves at Nick to tell him that he can get on the ice and much to his dismay, Nick comes skating right over to him.

“I’ll get the goals, then you’re good to go,” Alex says.

“Yeah, thank you,” Nick says. On skates, he’s as tall as Alex. “And thanks for, uh… You’re sticking around longer than you usually would, right? Thanks for that.”

“Sure,” Alex says. He’d be an idiot to turn down an extra three hundred bucks. Anyway, the other rink is still open for another half hour; he has to be here no matter what.

He sets up the goals and shuffles off the ice, then Nick catches up with him again by the Zamboni door.

“You wanna skate with me?” Nick asks.

Alex’s first instinct is to snap at him, because Nick knows that he doesn’t skate anymore, which means he’s just being an ass, but Alex actually just wants to walk away from this, from Nick, so he says, “I have stuff to do,” and does exactly that without getting into a huge argument.

He locks up the front office, because there’s only two more hockey players on the ice when he checks in on them, and he’s pretty sure there’s no one else coming. When the other rink is empty, he takes his time with the Zamboni, because this time no one is watching, and there are no more skaters coming, so it’s just him and the ice.

Alex turns off the lights as he leaves, sharpens a few rental skates, and then makes his way downstairs to see how Nick is doing.

He’s on the ice, doing stickhandling drills. Alex would bet this entire rink that Nick has no idea what time it is, and Alex won’t tell him what time it is either. Not immediately. First he’ll watch Nick a little bit. Just a minute or two. Because Nick is good and he’s always been good and watching him feels like a revelation. Seeing him skate takes your breath away.

Sure, he wasn’t particularly happy when Nick showed up earlier, but when he ignores what a huge douchebag Nick can be, what remains is a damn good hockey player.

A few minutes tick by, then Alex taps on the glass.

Nick looks up, his eyes wide. When he spots Alex behind the glass, he glances up at the clock and his eyes go even wider. He skates over to the glass and Alex opens the Zamboni door, so he can talk to him.

“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to the time,” Nick says. “I’ll pay you for the extra ten minutes.”

“Don’t worry about the extra ten minutes,” Alex says. It’s ten minutes. He was watching.

Nick nods. He doesn’t try to fight him on it. “Thank you.” He nods at the pucks that are still in the middle of the rink and, with some hesitation, says, “Well, I’ll… get my stuff.”

Alex can’t help but laugh, because he knows that face. He remembers it. He’s seen it a million times before, years ago. “Let me guess…” he says. “You wanna stay.”

“But you want to go home,” Nick says.

Alex shrugs. “How much longer?”

“Half an hour,” Nick says.

“Fine. Half an hour.”

Nick grins. “Wanna skate with me?”

Maybe Alex’s earlier assessment was wrong. Maybe Nick isn’t being an ass. Well, he is, but not in the way Alex was thinking. He’s teasing. Because he thinks that he knows Alex’s situation better than Alex does, thinks Alex could skate if only he tried. He’s being an ass, but not because he’s inconsiderate. Alex doesn’t know what Nick is… other than an ass, obviously.

But he has a special talent for pissing Alex off. Because he thinks he’s being funny.

Two can play that game.

“No,” Alex says. “I forgot my skates at home.”

Nick’s grin only gets wider. “What about all those rental skates upstairs?”

“The rental skates are so expensive here…” Alex shakes his head. “I just can’t afford those, you know?”

“Yeah, of course, I totally get it,” Nick says. “Maybe some other time, then. When you have your skates with you.”

“Whatever, Rivs,” Alex says. He tries to wipe the grin off his face, but he doesn’t quite manage. He always got along with Nick, they were friends, playing hockey together, chasing each other around the rink, teasing each other.

They’re already back to the teasing. What if Alex put on skates? What if he tried to chase Nick around the rink? Could he?

He doesn’t know. And he still isn’t ready to find out.

“I’ll be upstairs,” Alex says.

Nick smiles and Alex immediately turns to leave, because Nick is having fun here and Alex doesn’t want him to have fun. Or at least he doesn’t want to be involved in the fun.

“Thanks, Alex.”

“Sure, whatever.”

Alex goes back upstairs and tries to keep himself busy. It’s not hard because there’s always something to clean up and something to file, some equipment to put away. He finds some stuff in the locker rooms – a Grizzlies hat, a few pucks, a glove under a bench. He takes it all upstairs and puts it in the Lost & Found box. He already has some skate guards in there, and a hat with cat ears, and two water bottles, and, for some reason, one flip-flop that’s been there since the summer.

It’s weird that Byron isn’t here with him today. No one’s sniffing at his hand, asking for treats and so he sits in the front office on his own, eating chocolate, waiting for Nick to leave.

It takes more than half an hour, because of course it does.

Nick eventually appears, wet hair sticking out from under his hat, looking positively gleeful. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Lost track of time again.” He pulls out his credit card.

Alex frowns at him.

“For the extra hour?” Nick says.

“Right,” Alex says and grabs the card. He gives Nick the reduced rate, because that’s what he always does, and he’s not a total ass.

Nick looks like he’s about to protest for a second, but gets distracted by one of the posters next to the window. “You’re doing a charity game?”

“Yeah. We did the first one last year and tons of people came. It was nice.”

“What charity’s the money for?”

“We use half for our kids here, you know, for the ones who can’t afford new equipment and for the hockey camp in the summer. And then the team that sells the most raffle tickets gets to decide which charity gets the rest.”

“You’re selling raffle tickets?” Nick asks.

“Not yet, but…” Alex shrugs. “Ashley and Finn are in charge of the raffle prizes and everything. I just organize the hockey part.”

“Do you need,” Nick holds up his stick, “another prize?”

Okay, real talk. Alex needs all the prizes in the world. And the better the prizes are, the more raffle tickets they’re going to sell. He’s already asked Waldo if he’d sign something for him, if he could maybe get him a few pucks from the Cardinals’ rink, and Waldo promised that he would, but Alex wouldn’t ask him for more than that. But Nick is offering. There’s no way he’s saying no to this.

“Really?” Alex asks.

“Sure,” Nick says and leans the stick against the wall. “Do you have a pen?”

Alex hands over a pen and Nick signs the stick for him. “Thank you.”

“Happy to help.”

Of course he’s happy to help. He’s Nick Rivera, who hands out pucks and sticks like they’re Halloween candy. The Cardinals visited the children’s hospital for an early Halloween surprise the other day, all of them in costume. Connor left the house in a tutu and fairy wings that morning and apparently he and Nick stuck around for much longer than strictly necessary to hang out with the kids.

“I’ll just leave this here,” Nick says.

“Thank you,” Alex says again.

Nick grabs his bag and clears his throat. “Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you gonna be mad at me forever?” Nick asks.

Alex looks up at him, wondering if he should pretend that he doesn’t understand the question or if he should just be straight with Nick. “Yeah, I guess,” he says eventually.

“Okay. Just wondering,” Nick says.

Alex holds his gaze for a moment. He knows he won’t be mad at Nick forever. Part of him has already forgiven him, another part of him understood in the first place, but then there’s also that other part of him that wants to be mad and that’s also the part that’s winning. So, for now, being mad forever is his only option.

Nick takes a step back, leaving the stick leaning agains the wall. “So, if it’s cool with you, I might book the rink again in the future.”

Alex hands him one of their flyers. “Give me a call beforehand.”

“Sure,” Nick says. He smiles. “See you around.”

Alex tries to sound not even a little bit enthusiastic when he says, “Yeah, see you around.”

He’s not done being mad.

Not yet.

*

When the doorbell rings, Connor’s movie is over and he’s trying to figure out what to watch next. He could always watch hockey, but tonight’s not a good night for that. Sometimes you have to take a little break from the things you love.

Byron took off barking a few seconds ago, but he sometimes just does that. When there’s something suspicious going on. Like when there’s a squirrel in the backyard. Because, who knows, that squirrel might be up to something. Connor wasn’t actually expecting someone to be at the front door. It’s late and it’s not like he invited anyone. It must be someone who doesn’t come by a lot, because Byron doesn’t bark at the cars he knows.

Connor digs himself out from under his blankets and goes to the door. Byron is already there, still barking, his tail wagging.

Outside the door is Finn, one of the figure skating instructors. He’s standing right by the long window next to the door, looking in, waving when he sees Connor approach.

“Hey,” Finn says when Connor opens the door for him, Byron flitting past him to greet Finn. “Heeeey, and there’s my favorite puppy.”

Connor grins at him. “Hi, how’s it going?”

“Well…” Finn takes a deep breath. “Is Alex here?”

“No, he’s not, sorry.”

“ _Still_  at the rink?” Finn rolls his eyes. “It’s  _closed_.”

Connor shrugs. “Maybe he went out with friends or something?”

“Oh, please, this is Alex we’re talking about. He doesn’t just go out with friends. You have to ask him two weeks in advance, send him an itinerary ahead of time and then you have to drag him out the door to make sure he actually tags along.”

Connor can’t help but laugh. Maybe it’s a little mean. Maybe it’s also the truth, though. And it seems that Finn and Alex are really good friends, so maybe Finn is allowed to say that. “Fair enough,” Connor says. “Well, I guess he should be home soon. You wanna come in and wait for him? I was gonna watch a movie or something.”

Finn smirks at him. “I’d never say no to that.” He follows Connor into the house and makes straight for the kitchen. He gets himself a bottle of beer and joins Connor on the couch. He eyes Connor’s knitting, now on the coffee table, but he doesn’t comment.

Byron is on his cushion, like he knows that there’s no room on the couch for him right now. Finn grabs the bowl of popcorn from the table and leans back with a long-suffering sigh.

“Everything okay?” Connor asks. He isn’t one to pry – at least most of the time – but Finn seems a little upset and Connor is starting to get a feeling that Finn showed up here out of the blue because he wanted to talk to Alex about something important.

“No,” Finn says. Then he sighs again.

“I’m guessing you want to wait for Alex to talk about it?”

“Well… The thing is…” Finn turns to him, chewing on his bottom lip. “I don’t think I know you well enough to talk to you about this. But I feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t talk about it. So if you don’t care that we don’t know each other well enough for this, then I don’t care either.”

Connor isn’t sure if that’s the right answer, but he’s willing to listen. “I guess… I don’t care?”

“Okay. Okay, good. Let’s see…” Finn pauses for a moment, gathering his thoughts. “Unfortunately I sometimes have feelings. And currently I have many feelings.”

Connor smiles. “I see.”

“No, don’t smile. Seriously. It’s bad. They’re bad feelings. I don’t like them.”

“Why, what’s wrong with the feelings?”

“They’re warm and soft and mushy feelings. You know those?”

“Yeah…” Connor nods. “I know those.”

Finn runs his fingers along the blanket that’s bunched up between them. “So, a couple of years ago, I was dating this guy. And he was nice. He bought me dinner for our first date. He liked good music. He had fantastic hair. We were together for four years and then he cheated on me. And  _then_ … he had the audacity to tell me and expect me to forgive him.”

Connor opens his mouth to say something, but he has no idea what to say. He clears his throat. “That’s a shitty thing to do.”

“No kidding,” Finn says. “Anyway, so much for my tragic backstory…” He makes a face. “I didn’t wanna date anyone anymore, because it’s all bullshit, like, true love is a lie, but now there’s this guy, and I really like him, I more than  _like_  him, actually, and it’s all kinds of inconvenient. I’m a mess and who wants to date a mess, right?”

“I–”

“That’s not even the point, though,” Finn goes on. “The point is that my guy… you know, the guy I have all those inconvenient feelings for, he’s seeing someone else. I went to get pizza earlier and they were in the restaurant, eating together and it looked like they were having a damn good time and I… was jealous. That’s another feeling that I really don’t want. I’m not jealous, that’s not who I am.”

“That sucks,” Connor says. He’s so bad at this.

“I know, right? I’m a good person. Okay, sometimes I’m really grumpy in the morning when I haven’t had enough coffee, but I don’t deserve this. Byron, sweetiepie, come here and let me give you a hug.”

Byron, however, is clearly feeling sleepy, so he only half-heartedly wags his tail when he hears his name, but stays over on his cushion, head on his dragon as always.

“That guy didn’t even look that good,” Finn mutters. “Like… he was wearing a stupid Sailors shirt. Who the fuck likes the Sailors? They’re the worst. And his shoes were, like, straight boy shoes. And don’t even get me started on his haircut.”

“He’s probably also really mean,” Connor says, because he’s pretty sure that’s what Finn needs to hear right now. “He doesn’t hold the door open for people and he doesn’t wave back at children when they wave at him.”

“Ugh, who are we kidding, he’s probably really nice.” Finn empties his beer and groans. “And Andy deserves a guy who’s really nice. I’m not nice.”

“Yeah, you are,” Connor says.

“No, I’m not that kind of nice. I’m only nice on the surface, but under all the niceness I’m a mess. That guy’s probably nice under the niceness. He’s full-on nice. I hate him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m getting another beer,” Finn says and does exactly that.

Connor wonders if he should give Alex a call and find out if he’ll be home soon. Because Alex will be indefinitely more helpful than Connor could ever be. Solid advice isn’t his thing. It’s Alex’s thing.

When Finn returns, Connor hands him the remote for the TV, so he can pick a movie. There’s probably nothing else he can do for him.

“Thanks,” Finn says as he clicks through the movie options.

“Sure.”

“I sometimes forget that not all hockey players are superdouches who want to shove me into a locker because I’m a guy and I like nail polish.” Finn scoffs at the TV. “Okay, I can’t decide what I want to see. How about  _Seven_? Oh, no, wait, I wanna watch  _Gone Girl_.”

It’s not exactly the kind of movie Connor would have picked, but he won’t complain, because Finn is upset and people who are upset get to pick whichever movie they want.

“Is it really okay if I hang out here?” Finn asks as the movie starts. “Because fuck knows when Alex is coming home. He’s probably at the rink, polishing the Zamboni.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”

“You’re a good friend.” Finn frowns down at his beer. “I mean, we weren’t really friends when I waltzed in here, but I just told you how much of a mess I am, so I feel like that sort of makes us friends. But, really, I’m glad you’re Alex’s friend, too. You seem like the kind of guy he needs.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I mean…” Finn shrugs, tracing the rim of his bottle with his fingertip. “That game you invited him to? That was nice. I know he didn’t go, but… He sort of wanted to go and I think he felt really guilty that he didn’t. And you weren’t mad at him, right?

“I wasn’t,” Connor says. He was expecting it and Connor was a little disappointed, just like he was when he invited Alex to that preseason game and he didn’t come, but he’d never be mad.

“Good. That’s good,” Finn says. “He needs someone who doesn’t push him too hard. He doesn’t like to be pushed.”

Connor nods. “Yeah, isn’t it better if he figures it out for himself? That he wants to be there and… I don’t know. Maybe he needs a nudge, but his dad has been trying so hard to get him back into hockey, but it’s not gonna work, because Alex needs to do it himself, without anyone nudging him.”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “Yeah. I like you. You can stay.”

“I was planning on it.”

“Good.” Finn picks up the popcorn bowl again. “Now that we’re friends I don’t feel bad about eating all your popcorn.”

Alex gets home when the popcorn is long gone and Connor and Finn have shared a bowl of Doritos. Byron gets up all of a sudden and silently pads out the door. Alex comes walking into the living room a little while later. “Is Finn here? His car is–”

Finn waves at him. “Hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Andy has a boyfriend.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Alex says and sits down next to Finn.

“I saw them. They were having dinner together at  _Giuliana’s_. I wish I hadn’t bought pizza tonight. Actually, no, I wish I’d had my pizza  _delivered_.”

“Was the guy really tall? Long-ish hair?” Alex asks. “Sort of baby-faced?”

“Yeah. Oh shit, you know him?” Finn pokes Alex’s arm. “Please tell me he’s a douchebag.”

Alex gives Finn’s arm a pat in return. “That’s Andy’s cousin from Seattle.”

“His  _cousin_?”

“Yeah, Andy brought him to hockey practice yesterday. His cousin was really excited because he’s a huge Sailors fan and, you know… my dad’s coaching them.”

Finn nods. “Right. Andy’s cousin. From Seattle.”

“So, he’s not dating someone else?” Connor butts in.

Alex looks over at Connor, eyebrows raised. He gives Finn a nudge. “For how long have you been here?”

“A while. You were busy reading the Zamboni a bedtime story, so my new bro here was nice enough to listen to my woes.”

Alex smiles at Connor above Finn’s head and mouths a silent  _thank you_.


	30. late nights, Chapter 6.4

**late nights**

 

**Chapter 6.4**

 

*

**Sarah Albright**  @sassalbright

Celebrating tonight’s win with my favorite girls :)

*

“Tomorrow morning,” Nadira says as she picks up her drink, “I’m going to have regrets.”

“That’s the whole point,” Nessie says.

Sarah laughs when Nadira nods and downs the rest of her drink. Nadira is slightly drunk by now. Her braid is starting to come apart, but it somehow still looks good. Nadira is one of those people. One of those people who look good even when their hair is messy. At the rink, Nadira was wearing this fancy black blazer, but now she’s in a washed-out Ravens shirt and a leather jacket and she looks so pretty. And that’s four-drink-Sarah talking, but four-drink-Sarah usually has a point.

Four-drink-Sarah notices cute people.

The thing is, Sarah isn’t ready to notice cute people. Not even a little bit. Sarah needs to be single. She needs to be free. She can’t be noticing cute people right now, and not for some time. It’s way too soon for any of that nonsense.

“You know, if Jay was here, she’s be ordering fries right now,” Nessie says.

“Aw, Jay,” Anna sighs. “I hope she wins fifty gold medals. You know… you guys should all be at the Olympics.”

Sarah isn’t sure what her face is doing, but Saila wraps an arm around her. The Panthers’ starting goalie from last season is also headed for the Olympics. Sarah would lie if she said that she doesn’t want another chance to win a medal, but she’s also happy where she is right now. She had dinner with her grandpa last night and she’s out with friends and she’s having a great time. She’s in a good place.

“Fries,” Nessie says, a little out of the blue.

Saila looks over her shoulder and waves over their waiter, who appears to be slightly smitten with her. She orders “a gigantic portion of fries” and is awfully pleased with herself when that is exactly what they get.

“I’m so glad that Tommy is in love with you, because it always gets us extra food,” Steph says. “Look at all those fries. Beautiful.”

“Who wouldn’t be in love with her,” Nessie says and pats Saila’s arm.

Saila smiles broadly. “You’re welcome.”

“These fries were a great idea,” Nadria says. She grabs a couple and… There are people who even look cute when they’re eating. No one should look cute doing mundane things like that.

Sarah grabs a handful of fries as well and convinces herself to focus on them and not on whoever might be being adorable across the table.

“So,” Steph says, pointing a fry at Nadira, “my brother tells me you live with one of his teammates. Connor, right? Are you guys dating?”

Nadira starts laughing so hard that she almost chokes on a fry. “No, he’s just my roommate,” she eventually grits out. “And I’m just sleeping in the guest room. I’m gonna try to find my own place.” For a moment, Nadira looks vaguely guilty, probably because apartment hunting hasn’t really been on her mind lately – or at least she didn’t mention it to Sarah. “Anyway,” Nadira goes on, “Waldo is… I mean, he’s Waldo, you know?”

“Okay, how do we know this dude?” Anna asks. “Is he on the Cardinals with Mikey?”

“Yeah,” Steph says. “Mike talks about Waldo all the time. They all love him. I mean, he does seem like the greatest guy ever.”

“He’s adorable,” Nessie says. “I wanna squish his cheeks.”

Nadira grins. “Well, if you wanna come over and squish his cheeks, be my guest.”

“You have all the good connections,” Saila says.

“Please,” Nadira says and waves her hand dismissively, nearly knocking over her empty glass. She steadies it with both hands and a giggle.

“Speaking of the Cardinals,” Nessie says, “I’ve been watching your videos. They’re so good, like, you’re so funny.”

Nadira is starting to look somewhat embarrassed.

“You should make videos about us,” Steph says.

“And talk about how amazing we are,” Sarah adds.

Nessie nods eagerly. “ _Only_  about how amazing we are.”

“Or you could invite me as a guest, so I can talk shit about my brother,” Steph says. “I have a lot to say about his shitty slapshots.”

The whole table dissolves into giggles and Saila waves their waiter over to order another round of drinks.

“Regrets,” Nadira says. “I see them. In my future.”

Saila bursts out laughing and Nadira laughs along.

This time, Sarah doesn’t look away.

*

“Babe…”

“No.”

“Ash.”

“Sleeping.”

“Yeah, but you’re sleeping on the couch,” Jamie says very softly. “And you hate sleeping on the couch, remember? Every time you sleep on the couch you tell me to never let you sleep on the couch again.”

“Ugh…”

“So I’m just doing my duty.”

“S’the movie over?” Ashley asks.

“Yeah, it’s been over for a while,” Jamie whispers. “I watched two episodes of  _Stranger Things_  in the meantime.”

Ashley shoots up straight and something hisses at her. She opens her eyes and sees Hendrix dart away, jumping on the cat tree, glaring at her from across the room. Ashley turns to glare at Jamie. “You watched  _Stranger Things_  without me?”

“I’d never,” Jamie says. “I just didn’t want you to sleep on the couch, so it was time for desperate measures. I know you’d complain tomorrow morning, because you hate sleeping on the couch and you’d be mad at me for letting you.”

“You suck and I love you,” Ashley says and stands up on the couch, so she’s a little bit taller than Jamie. She wraps her arms around him and he picks her up with a sigh, her legs wrapped around his waist, so he can carry her upstairs.

Jamie carefully makes his way up the stairs without tripping over a cat, takes her into their bedroom, and drops her on top of the covers.

“Nooo, it’s cold,” Ashley grumbles and pushes her face into her pillow.

The covers are being pulled out from under her and then very slowly pulled over her. Ashley smiles and mumbles, “Thank you.”

Jamie kisses her forehead.

“Thank you,” Ashley mumbles again.

Then something soft is being tucked under the covers with her and Ashley blinks at it. It’s the seal plush Jamie got for her back in high school that usually sits on their dresser. Jamie giggles when Ashley frowns at it.

“Fuck off,” Ashley says and hugs the seal close. “The seal can sleep on your side of the bed. You can sleep on the dresser because you made fun of me.”

“I just wanted you to be comfortable,” Jamie says, smiling down at her with perfect innocence.

“Ugh, whatever, get in here,” Ashley says. She blinks at the clock on her bedside table. “Look at us, going to bed before midnight. Like old people.”

Jamie scoots against her, butt first, clearly set on being the little spoon today. “I like being an old person with you.”

Ashley wraps an arm around him, the seal squashed between them. “Hmm, me too.”

*

Nick’s house is too big.

It’s too big and too empty and he should have just found himself a nice apartment and not a huge house with too many rooms and a pool and a huge backyard. It’s a house for someone who has a family, and two cars and a dog and maybe a guinea pig because the kids really wanted one.

He puts down his gear, gets himself a bottle of water from the kitchen and flops down on his huge couch in his huge living room and turns on his huge TV. He didn’t buy any new furniture for the place, he only put up a few pictures and put his books and DVDs on shelves. Nick somehow feels like he doesn’t really live here, like he’s missing a piece. He feels like he’s constantly on the road and never coming home.

Having Connor over has been nice. The good thing about Connor is that he comes by, makes a mess in the kitchen, watches a movie with him, and then goes back home again.

Nick does like being alone. But his house is too big.

He turns on the Lions game. He missed puck drop because he was at the rink, but the game is still scoreless. The Sailors are twenty seconds into a power play. Paulson is in the box, because of course he is. Nick hasn’t had the chance to watch too many Lions games, because he was playing, or on a plane, or watching different teams because he’ll play against them more often now that he’s on an East Coast team.

On his TV, the Sailors score with five seconds left on the power play.

It’s strange. Watching them. Until this summer, he’d only ever been on one team in the league, and now he’s watching them. After the end of the second period, it looks like he’s watching them lose.

And Nick is trying hard not to feel gleeful, but they traded him and now they haven’t even won half of the games they’ve played so far.

The camera cuts to Zach Goldman, whispering to one of the assistant coaches behind the bench. He leans down to say something to Evan Robins and pats his bucket. Nick has heard many players say that Zach Goldman is one of the best coaches they’ve ever had and Nick doesn’t doubt it, but he also knows that Zach Goldman is and always has been better at coaching than at being a dad.

Nick starts to nod off during the third and grabs a blanket. He’s had trouble falling asleep for ages. He loves days like today when he’s too exhausted to think much; he just falls right asleep.

He jerks awake when the goal horn sounds. The Lions and the Sailors are approaching the end of the third and the Sailors just scored again. There’s no way the Lions are coming back from that and there’s also no way that Nick isn’t falling asleep again in the next two minutes, so he turns off the TV, grabs a blanket and curls up right there.

Nick sleeps on the couch a lot. It’s huge and comfortable and he likes how he can scoot against the back. He can’t do that in his bed.

Going to the rink was a great idea. Not just because he doesn’t have trouble falling asleep for once. He talked to Alex. And they were joking around. Just a little bit, but it’s something. Nick knows that he acted like a total shithead all those years ago and Alex is pretending that he’ll never forgive him, but they’ve reached a point where Nick can tell that Alex might let him off the hook soon.

Nick yawns and pulls his blanket up to his chin.

He’s asleep within a minute.


	31. late nights, Chapter 6.5

**late nights**

 

**Chapter 6.5**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

the best boy and I are saying good night #sleepytime instagram.com/p/gP6nd

*

“I don’t know how she does it,” Nadira says. She was going for a whisper, but it was definitely loud enough for everyone to hear.

“How who does what?” Sarah asks.

“She walks,” Nadira says and points at Nessie, “in those shoes.”

“Yeah, but she only has to walk across the street,” Steph says. “We have to walk all the way down there.” She points down the street, where she lives in an apartment building with Anna.

“I could walk all the way  _down there_ ,” Nessie says, smiling down at her shoes. They’re purple and the heels are murder weapons.

“Please don’t,” Sarah says. A moment later, she almost trips over her own foot. “No more walking. I gotta… sleep. And not walk anymore.”

“Just across the street,” Steph says and grabs Anna, who was starting to wander off. “Okay, time t’go. See ya on the flipside, kiddos.”

There’s a chorus of goodbyes and clumsy hugs and a fair amount of stumbling before they all go their separate ways – Steph and Anna down the street, with Saila trailing after them, Nessie and Sarah across the street, Nadira at their heels. Nadira almost trips down the curb and Sarah catches her and wraps an arm around her.

“You need to watch where you’re going,” Sarah says and laughs.

“I was watching, but my eyes…” Nadira takes a deep breath. Her thoughts are very, very slow right now. “My eyes are not… they’re mean.”

“They’re mean,” Sarah echoes.

“Mean.”

“Okay.”

Nadira lets Sarah nudge her across the street, arm wrapped around her waist. When Nadira is drunk she usually insists that she doesn’t need any help, but when they reach the other side of the street, she almost misses the curb again, because her eyes are really not cooperating – or  _mean_ , as Very Drunk Nadira likes to say.

They make it to the door at the side of the building, and Nessie manages to get fish her keys out of her bag after half a dozen failed attempts. “Yay,” she says and holds them up, then nearly drops them and leans against the door. “Okay, I got this.”

“Yeah,” Nadira says.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Sarah chimes in. “You can do it.”

Nadira nods and it makes the world shake a little bit. “We believe in you.”

“So much.”

“Okay,” Nessie says and fumbles with her keys. “Okay, okay…” She manages on the first try and Sarah and Nadira cheer for her. Up the stairs and they’re right in front of Nessie and Sarah’s apartment, and Nessie once again unlocks the door on the first try. “I am… the master. And the master needs to go to bed.”

“Hard same,” Nadira says. “Where’s your couch?”

“It’s right…” Nessie trails off into a groan. “The couch is right under all that stuff.”

“Oh, we forgot about the stuff.”

The stuff looks like parts that go with a half-assembled shelf on the floor.

“Oops,” Nessie says.

“Whatever,” Sarah says and points at her room. “I have a ginormous bed. We can share. It’ll be a sleepover.”

“Yay, sleepover,” Nadira says. She kicks off her shoes, drops her jacket on the half-assembled shelf, and follows Sarah into her room.

Sarah shoots her a smile when Nadira hovers next to the bed. “I’ll try not to kick you in the shin.”

“How lovely of you,” Nadira says, stumbling over the words. Yeah. Time to sleep. “Which side is yours?”

“Right side,” Sarah says and flops down there. “Nighty night.”

Nadira lies down on the left side. The door is open and the hallway light is still on, but she can’t stay upright any longer. “I shouldn’t have had that last drink,” Nadira mutters.

Sarah snorts. “We’ll get breakfast at the bakery downstairs tomorrow morning. Lots of bacon. Eggs.”

“Yes.”

“And coffee. So much coffee.”

Nadira hums. She’ll need all the coffee in the world. “Have fun waking up to my hungover face in the morning.”

“’m sure it’ll be sup’r cute,” Sarah says softly.

Nadira laughs, because she’ll be about a million miles away from cute, and immediately regrets it. “Sleep,” she says.

“Yeah,” Sarah agrees. “Sleep.”

*

Alex goes to bed once Connor has given up on convincing them to watch another movie and after they’ve decided that Finn is in no state to drive home. He makes sure Byron is sound asleep on his cushion, makes sure Finn has a blanket, and makes sure that Connor put all the food back in the fridge, then he goes upstairs and tucks himself into bed.

It usually doesn’t take him long to fall asleep. He doesn’t have too many bed dreams anymore either. Sometimes memories will sneak into his dreams still, but it’s bearable most of the time.

Tonight he pulls the sheets up to his chin and closes his eyes, but he doesn’t go to sleep. He squints at the clock after a while, sees that it’s been fifteen minutes, pushes at his pillow and turns over.

Nick sneaks into his thoughts, because of course he does.

Alex tries to think of nothing at all, but it doesn’t work. It never works. He turns over again. Squints at the clock. It’s 1:34 AM. He needs to sleep. He doesn’t have to be at the rink until noon, because there are no public skates on Sunday morning – it’s all private and group lessons, so the figure skating instructors are going to open the rink. They have a peewee game tomorrow afternoon that Alex has to be there for, though.

Even though he doesn’t necessarily have to get up early, Alex would very much like to sleep now. He’s tired.

He wants to stop thinking about Nick Rivera. And he wants to stop remembering the look on Nick’s face when he asked Alex to skate with him. Like he knew exactly how much Alex wanted to say yes.

Alex sighs and rolls onto his back, blinking up at the ceiling.

He could go skating. Just him. When the rink is closed. With no one watching, no one judging him. He could start by taking his skates to the rink. He doesn’t need to do it tomorrow, or next week, but at some point. Maybe soon.

Alex gives sleep another chance, tries to think of nothing again.

The next time he takes a peek at the clock it’s past two. Whatever. He’ll get himself a glass of water, because he’s clearly not about to fall asleep.

He slips out of bed and makes his way down the hall, but he doesn’t make it all the way to the stairs. He stops next to his old room for a moment and eventually slips inside.

The room looks pretty threadbare now. The posters he put up as a teenager are gone, the desk in the corner is unused, there are no clothes piled up on the armchair in the corner by the window. He hasn’t been in here in… a while. He honestly can’t even remember. Against the wall, boxes are stacked up, all of them neatly labeled in his mom’s handwriting.

Before he went back to college after his accident, Alex took all his trophies off his shelves. He put them in a box and left them there, then he took another box and dumped his equipment inside and left it there, too. It’s all right here, hidden away so he doesn’t have to spend even just a second looking at it.

Alex grabs the box that’s labelled  _Jerseys_  and lifts it off the one that says  _Equipment_. It takes very little digging for him to find his skates in there.

He pulls them out, tugs at the laces, winds them around his fingers. He picks them up and puts them on top of the box. He’ll take them tomorrow. Or next week. Soon. He’ll take them soon. He leaves them right there, backs out of his room and turns off the lights. The door creaks softly as he pulls it shut.

The skates aren’t in the box anymore. That’s all he can do for now.

He stands outside the door for a moment longer, because he could also carry them downstairs, and maybe he could even put them in his car, but it’s the middle of the night. Instead, he leaves the skates exactly where they are and goes downstairs. He’ll get some water and then he’ll read until he falls asleep.

*

Connor isn’t sure what woke him up. It’s past two in the morning and his room is pitch-dark, but there’s a bright stripe under his door, which means that someone is probably awake. Maybe he heard footsteps outside his door.

The thing is, the hallway light is never on this time of night and Nadira sent him a text earlier to tell him that she’d be spending the night with friends. So someone forgot to turn it off. Or someone is sneaking about the house in the middle of the night. Connor isn’t sure why it bugs him so much, because it’s most likely not a big deal, but he still gets out of bed to investigate.

The door of Alex’s bedroom is open a crack and the lights are on. Connor knocks on the door and it swings open a little further.

Alex’s room is empty.

With a frown, Connor continues down the hallway to the stairs, following the trail of lights that shouldn’t be on. He ends up in the kitchen, where Alex is dipping a bag of tea into hot water, his eyes fixed on the mug. He’s wearing his flannel pajama pants, so he must have gone to bed.

Or maybe he didn’t.

“Why are you making tea at, like, two in the morning,” Connor asks.

Alex shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Okay?”

Alex looks up, his expression guarded. “Why are you up?”

Connor shrugs. He’s just being a nosy little shit.

“Just go back to bed,” Alex mutters.

Connor doesn’t move, because something’s not right here and it’s not just that Alex is making tea in the middle of the night. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Alex says.

Connor almost believes him, but there’s still that strange expression on his face, so Connor decides to stick around for a moment longer. He’s not sure if he should ask any questions or if he should just wait and give Alex a chance to say something if he wants to. In the end, he clears his throat and asks, “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

“I don’t know.” Alex stares down at his mug, still pulling at the string of the tea bag. “It happens sometimes.”

“It does?”

“Not that often,” Alex says and it’s probably supposed to make Connor feel less worried, but it’s not really working. There are all these little things about Alex that lead Connor to suspect that he’s not as okay as he says he is and nothing Alex says or does will keep him from worrying.

“How often?” Connor asks.

Alex rolls his eyes with a smile. “Waldo…”

“What?”

“I’m fine. Go to bed.”

“Actually, I think I want some tea, too,” Connor says.

“No, you don’t.” Alex shakes his head. “You don’t even like tea. Or at least I’ve never seen you drink a single cup of tea ever since you moved in.”

Connor huffs. “Fine, I hate the leaf water.”

Alex has the audacity to laugh at him. “You don’t have to babysit me, I swear. I’ll go to bed. And I’ll sleep.”

“What if I just want to… hang out with you?”

“At two in the morning?” Alex asks.

“Yes, because…”

“Because?”

“Because I’m a little bit worried about you,” Connor says. “Just a little bit.”

Alex stares at him like he’s grown a second head, but Connor won’t back down now.

“And I’m your friend,” Connor continues. “And I feel like there’s stuff you’re not telling me. Which is fine. You don’t have to tell me everything. But I’m here, okay? If you… want to share. I’m here.”

“Okay,” Alex says.

“Okay,” Connor echoes. “I’m gonna go back to bed.”

Alex nods. “Okay.”

“And I’m gonna hug you before I go, because that’s what I do.”

“Waldo, come on.”

“Fine, no hug.”

Alex sighs. “Good night, Waldo.”

“Good night,” Connor says and slowly backs away. He hears Alex sigh softly when he leaves the kitchen.

Connor goes back upstairs and curls up in bed.

The hallway light is turned off about ten minutes later. Then he finally goes back to sleep.


	32. losses, Chapter 7.1

**losses**

 

**Chapter 7.1**

 

*

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

in case you’re wondering, @ConnorWaldo and I are still bros, we’ll just stop being bros for a couple of hours tomorrow

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Retweet with hashtag #GoCardsGo to win a pair of tickets for tomorrow’s game against the Colorado Hawks!

*

“Why is this so… liquid-y?”

Alex stops in his tracks, puts down the plates he was about to put away and peers across the kitchen island to inspect Connor’s chocolate mousse. “Have you ever made chocolate mousse?”

“No?” Connor looks at him like he’s gone totally insane. “But I thought, ‘Hey, how hard can it be, right?’ Well. It’s  _hard_.” He dips his finger into another one of the little bowls. “Why is this happening?”

“Well, I guess–”

“I wasn’t actually asking you,” Connor says. “I fucked up. Look at this… I just need something to go well for me. I’ve had two shitty games and then I had a shitty delayed flight home and now I also have shitty chocolate mousse? No fucking thanks.”

“Okay, Waldo…”

Connor groans. He looks like he’s about to give up on life.

“Take a deep breath,” Alex says. “And then tell me how I can help.”

Connor sticks out his bottom lip. “Can you save my chocolate mousse?”

“No. But I can make something else real quick.”

“How quick?” Connor asks. “Wilder is gonna be here in less than an hour. Can you make cookies in less than an hour? You can, right? I’ve seen you do that.”

“Yeah.” Alex abandons the plates and starts grabbing ingredients. “What’s with the dessert anyway? We’re gonna order pizza. I don’t think Shane’s expecting a three-course meal.”

Connor presses his lips together and glares down at his chocolate mousse.

“What?” Alex asks.

Connor rolls his eyes. “I lost a bet.”

Alex can’t help but laugh. “Of course you did.”

“So can you make the cookies and we can pretend that I made them?” Connor asks. “Because I owe Wilder dessert.”

Shaking his head, Alex grabs the chocolate chips. “You owe me.”

“Dessert?”

“No, don’t worry,” Alex says with a grin.

“I mean, I’d buy it. I wouldn’t try to make it myself, because that’s clearly not working out for me.”

“Just empty the dishwasher, Waldo.”

“Okay,” Connor whispers and shuffles over to the dishwasher. “Thanks, dude.”

Alex laughs quietly and gets started on the cookies. He lost his fair share of bets back when he was playing in college. Most of them were pretty boring and ended with him having to clean all bathrooms in the house he lived in with a couple of teammates off campus, and with him having to untie skates and carry sticks for other people, but then one bet ended with him wearing a  _Matt Bailey Fan Club President_ shirt for a month. The guys got him three shirts so he wouldn’t have to do the laundry every day. They were invested. Alex still has one of them somewhere upstairs. One of them got totally destroyed at a party, and the last one– Mattie stole the last one.

“Alex?”

“Huh?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah, sure…” Alex looks up. “Why?”

“Because you’ve been staring at that cookie dough for like a full minute and maybe that’s just part of making the cookies but–”

“Yeah, I’m fine, sorry, I was just…” Alex shakes his head and quickly turns away to grab the cookie sheets. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Connor says. It sounds like he doesn’t quite believe him.

Alex can’t blame him for being suspicious. There’s a bunch of stuff that Alex isn’t talking about, and it’s stuff that he doesn’t talk about with anyone, it’s not just Connor. Alex is just sort of bad at talking about certain things. Most of those things concern his past. His accident. What happened before it. What happened after it.

He sighs and starts scooping dough onto cookie sheets.

He wants to tell Connor things. He trusts him. The problem is that he doesn’t even know where to start. And it never seems like a good time to tell Connor anything, because Alex knows that whatever he tells him will be followed by A Very Long Conversation.

“Thanks for letting me invite Wilder over,” Connor says as he throws cutlery into the drawer.

“That sounds like I’m your mom,” Alex mutters. “You can invite whoever you want. You live here.”

“Yeah, sure, but it’s your house.”

“And you live here.” Alex goes and rinses the bowl before Connor can get any stupid ideas about eating raw cookie dough. “Don’t worry. Anyway, I like Shane, he’s a nice dude.”

“He is,” Connor says. He smiles softly. “I miss him a lot. Not that you’re not a pleasure to live with, but…”

“No, I get it,” Alex says. “I always missed my teammates when I went home for the summer.”

“What happened to the guys you played with in college, do you know?”

Alex doesn’t reply immediately. He doesn’t even know where most of them are these days.

“Sorry, was that a bad thing to ask?” Connor says. “It was. It was totally a bad thing to ask.”

“Waldo,” Alex says, “deep breath.”

“Don’t make fun of me. I don’t want you to feel bad.”

“I’m not…” Alex trails off. He’s not sure how this makes him feel. It makes him feel something, that’s for sure, but he’s not feeling  _bad_. Bad is too simple a word to describe it. He’s feeling nostalgic and sad that he’ll never play with those guys again, but he also feels like smiling when he thinks about them. “I miss them.”

Connor only hums in reply and Alex can tell that he regrets that he asked.

“One of the guys I used to play with is on the Wolves now,” Alex says, “and then another one signed with the Ravens and he’s on their farm team. I think one of them plays in Europe. But I didn’t…” Alex shrugs. “I’m not in touch with any of them.”

“Yeah, makes sense. Who’s on the Wolves, though?”

“Martin Lewis.”

“Ohh, okay. He’s pretty good.”

“Yeah, pretty good,” Alex echoes. He’s pretty sure that Marty is on the second line. He used to play on a line with Alex in college. They had good chemistry, and they had those stretches where everything felt just right, where magic happened and there was no good explanation for it. Those perfect streaks where pucks just found their way into the net and nothing could stop them.

Alex misses that, too.

Connor quickly changes the subject after that and eventually ends up sitting on the floor, scratching Byron’s ears.

Shane is about ten minutes late, which gives Alex enough time to pull the cookies out of the oven and put them on a cooling rack and then leave the kitchen to pretend that he had absolutely nothing at all to do with those cookies. He’s the first one who makes it to the door when the doorbell rings, Byron right at his heels, tail wagging.

“Hey, you must be Alex,” Shane says when Alex opens the door. “Nice to meet you. I’m Shane. And that’s the best boy ever, right? Hey…”

“Come on in,” Alex says.

Connor is already coming down the hallway, jumping right into Shane’s arms. “Wilder, my dude, my guy.”

“Heeey,” Shane says and gives Connor a squeeze. He’s a lot smaller than Connor, probably one of the shortest players in the league right now. “You need to let go of me, I have to pet the dog.”

Connor snorts and lets go of Shane, who immediately bends down to pat Byron’s head.

They end up in the living room, Byron hanging out with Shane, because he already knows that he has a new friend who will pet him all evening. They order pizza and Alex isn’t really sure if he should stick around, but then Shane starts asking him questions about the rink and Alex gets sucked into the conversation.

“My uncle has a rink back in Winnipeg,” Shane says. “I used to work there during the summer when I was a kid and I still go back every summer. It’s nice.”

“I think I might convince Alex to let me work at his rink next summer,” Connor says.

“The kids are gonna be all over you,” Alex says.

“Oh, yeah,” Shane says. “He came with me during our bye week last season and we played with my nieces and their friends and they loved him. Actually, Evie had a huge crush on you. And she was so sad when you got traded.”

Connor makes a face. “Poor Evie.”

“It’s okay, as much as it pains me, I’ll get her a Cardinals jersey with your name on it,” Shane says. He turns to Alex and grins. “I’m the cool uncle, you know? And I have good connections.”

Alex laughs.

“But, I mean, you have even better connections, so…”

“I guess,” Alex says and shrugs. He’s not particularly in the mood to talk about his dad or his connections or whatever.

And Shane is a smart guy, or maybe Alex is just ridiculously transparent this evening, but he immediately barrels on and says, “Hey, Waldo, remember when I tried to get Sam… my other niece, she’s five,” he adds, likely for Alex’s benefit, “a signed Ian Grey jersey? I think you called Rivs, didn’t you, Waldo? And Rivs got it for us?”

“He did,” Connor says. “But I had to bribe Alan so he’d get me Nick’s phone number.”

“You didn’t have Nick’s phone number?” Alex asks.

“I guess he changed it,” Connor says and waves him off. “Anyway, we didn’t really stay in touch. I don’t know. We saw each other every now and then, but… Whatever. Hey, Wilder, you should sign something for Alex, he’s doing a charity thing at the rink.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shane says, “I’ll find you a jersey. Because I’m the uncle with the cool presents.” He shoves the last bit of his pizza into his mouth and elbows Connor. “So, what’s the dessert situation?”

“I have dessert,” Connor says. “It’s in the kitchen. Wait here…”

Connor darts away, leaving Byron clearly conflicted, because Shane is still petting him, but someone is in the kitchen, and when people go to the kitchen, food usually appears.

“Did he seriously make dessert?” Shane whispers.

Alex nods.

“No, he didn’t.”

“He did,” Alex says. Because Connor did make that chocolate mousse, it just didn’t turn out as planned.

Shane shakes his head. “You don’t look like you’re lying to me, but… I also know Waldo. I know he can’t make dessert. He just can’t. You live with him now, so you also know that he can’t.”

Connor returns before Alex can reply, carrying a plate of cookies.

“You didn’t make these,” Shane says as he takes one. He inspects it, takes a bite, and frowns. “But you also didn’t buy them.”

Connor only smiles innocently and takes a cookie as well. “Alex, would you like one?”

Alex wordlessly takes one. He knows that his cookies are good and he’s never messed these up in his entire life. His Nana taught him well.

Shane eats another one, and another one, and as he grabs the fourth one, he turns to Alex and says, “You made them, didn’t you?”

“Do I have the right to remain silent?” Alex asks.

“Waldo,” Shane says, “ _you_  were supposed to make dessert.”

“I did, but I fucked it up, so…” Connor nods at the cookies. “I can’t believe you have so little faith in me. Like, is there really no chance that I could have made these.”

“No.”

Connor sticks out his bottom lip.

“Aw, Waldo, sweetiepie,” Shane says and wraps an arm around Connor. “I’m sorry, but you’re just so bad at cooking.”

“Shut up.”

Shane laughs and ruffles Connor’s hair. “Hey, we should take a picture, I need one for my fridge, so I don’t forget what you look like.”

“I have an idea. You could just stay here and live with us. We have enough room, right, Alex?”

“Sure,” Alex says. He didn’t even realize just how much Connor has been missing Shane during the last couple of months. They’re joking about it, but those two would clearly move back in with each other in a heartbeat if they could.

“Not sure if I’m up for the commute, though,” Shane says.

“Please,” Connor says, still not letting go of Shane, “it’s only about two thousand miles.”

“Totally doable.”

“Totally.”

*

The game against the Hawks is an absolute disaster.

It starts out well enough. Yoshi scores on the power play with an assist from Nick, then Bunny scores, also with an assist from Nick, and they’re up by two goals as they head into the locker room for the first intermission.

Nick gets roped into doing an interview, because he assisted on both goals. He’s on autopilot during interviews. He’s had social media training; he knows what to say without saying too much. He knows how to answer questions without actually telling a reporter what they wanted to know. In the end it’s just a bunch of phrases that you know in your sleep after a couple of interviews.

Connor has been excellent so far during this game, too. He knows the Hawks, knows how they like to play and what to expect. Nick saw Connor and Shane Wilds talking at center ice during warm-ups, giving each other head-pats before they headed off the ice.

Connor isn’t on the ice for the goal the Hawks score forty seconds into the second period. He also isn’t on the ice for the goal that Shane Wilds scores only a few moments after that. Once the game is tied, they sort of start to fall apart. It just happens sometimes and there’s not always an explanation for it. Today they lose their lead and it throws them off enough that they end up with goal after goal going in.

The final score is 7-2 and when the horn sounds for the end of the third, Nick is glad that he finally gets to leave.

He has to talk to the media after the game, because of fucking course he does. He gives them the usual meaningless crap – they let their goalie down, they need to get pucks to the net, they need to do better for their teammates. They can’t win every single game, Nick is very well aware of that, but they needed a win tonight. They already lost their last two games on the road and now they’re back on home ice and they lost another one.

When Nick is finally ready to head home, Connor is waiting for him outside the locker room, car keys already in hand. It makes sense for them to go to the rink together; Connor lives only about a mile away from him. He’s grateful for the company, too.

“Sorry you had to wait,” Nick mutters.

Connor only shrugs. He’s obviously not in the best mood.

Nick pats his back as they head down the hall. “You weren’t even on the ice for most of the goals,” he says.

“Yeah, but…”

Nick sighs. “Still sucks, I know.”

“And, you know… Whatever, it’s stupid.”

“What?”

Connor looks over his shoulder like he’s afraid that someone might hear. “You wanna win against your former team. You’ll see when we play against the Lions. It’s just… it feels just a tiny little bit better than all the other wins.”

“Well, you’ll–”

“Hey, Nick, do you have a second?”

Quite frankly, Nick just wants to go home, crawl into bed and stay there as long as possible, but Frankie, one of their trainers, is right behind them and he has two kids in tow and Nick obviously has to spare a second for them.

“Do you mind?” Nick asks, because there’s a good chance that Connor also wants to go home, crawl into bed and stay there as long as possible.

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“Thanks,” Frankie says when Nick and Connor wait for him and the kids. “These are my brother’s kids and they really wanted to say hi.”

“Hey,” Nick says and waves at the kids. “How’s it going?”

The younger one chokes out a quiet, “Good,” her eyes wide as Nick kneels down to shake her hand before he turns to her brother.

They take a few pictures and the little girl stares at Connor so hard that Nick eventually suggests that she should take a photo with him, at which point her smile gets so wide that you’d think someone just told her that she’ll get to eat ice cream for dinner for the rest of her life.

It’s nice to see that Connor gets some love, too.

Nick is used to seeing signs with his name on them behind the glass during warm-ups, he’s used to seeing people wearing jerseys with his name on the back, but Connor is quickly turning into a fan favorite here in Hartford as well. Nick is a little bit proud of him.

They finally head out a few minutes later, Connor waving over his shoulder as they walk away.

In the car, they’re both quiet.

It’s only when Connor pulls into Nick’s driveway that he says, “I’m ready to sleep for about a week.”

“Me too,” Nick says quietly. “Hey, Waldo…”

“Hm?”

“We’ll win the one on Saturday.”

Connor nods. “Yeah. We will.”


	33. losses, Chapter 7.2

**losses**

 

**Chapter 7.2**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

when are we as a society gonna stop being cowards and watch more women’s hockey

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

honestly the cardinals would benefit so much from a deal with the panthers

*

Ashley wakes up for approximately one second when Jamie kisses her goodbye. She mumbles something that’s supposed to be an  _I love you_ , but she’s too tired to tell if it comes out right. Jamie tucks the sheets around her and kisses the top of her head before she leaves and Ashley hums at him. He’s driving his parents up to Vermont for his uncle’s birthday party.

Ashley couldn’t go – she has a private skating lesson scheduled for later this morning and she needs those private skating lessons. They pay well and being good at what she does isn’t the only thing that matters. She needs to be reliable, too, and she already cancelled on Hannah the day she went to pick out her wedding dress. She can’t keep doing that.

And she severely dislikes Jamie’s uncle.

She also severely dislikes eating breakfast on her own, but Hendrix, Bowie and Dylan all decide to keep her company. When Jamie isn’t around, she does feel a little bit like a crazy cat lady.

Since Jamie isn’t around, Ashley does the dishes  _her_  way when she’s done with breakfast, which means they go right into the stupid dishwasher. Honestly. Who puts dishes in the sink and leaves them there? Not that Jamie isn’t absolutely perfect, but sometimes he does those  _things_.

Ashley has no illusions. Everyone does annoying things. She does annoying things, too. She does things she annoys herself with and she does things she annoys Jamie with. That’s just the way it is.

She wipes down the kitchen counters, because she knows that Jamie would want her to, and her hands are still wet when her phone starts ringing. It’s her mom, so she grabs her phone without wiping her hands first, which ends with her nearly dropping it into the sink.

“Yeah?”

“Ashley, what’s wrong? You sound like you’re out of breath.”

“Just cleaning up in the kitchen,” Ashley says. “What’s up?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking…”

It’s never a good sign when Ashley’s mom starts a sentence with,  _Well, I’ve been thinking_ … It’s usually followed by a bad idea. More often than not it’s an idea that would have an unwanted impact on Ashley’s life. A lot of  _Well, I’ve been thinking_ s started conversations when Ashley and Jamie first moved in together.

Ashley’s mom had many, many thoughts about their house. About the curtains they should get for the kitchen and about the couch they should get for the living room and the color they should paint the future nursery. But Ashley didn’t want curtains in the kitchen, because all those would do is catch fire, and she didn’t want a new couch because she had one cat with sharp claws and was planning on adopting another one, and she didn’t even want to think about nurseries.

These days Ashley’s mom has many, many thoughts about the wedding. This one will likely be about the wedding, too.

“Yes?” Ashley prompts. She has to leave for the rink soon, so they should get this conversation over with.

“About the wedding…” her mom says. “I know you have your mind set on that outdoor idea, but are you sure you want to get married in a backyard? I know, it’s the Goldmans’ house, but it’s still… a backyard.”

“We’ll have decorations,” Ashley says. “There’ll be a tent. White chairs. Flowers. It’s not  _just_  a backyard.”

“I understand, but–”

“Mom, the backyard is beautiful and it’s free. I’m sticking with it.”

Her mom sighs. “I understand. It’s your wedding.”

That’s what she keeps saying.  _It’s your wedding_. That’s right. It’s Ashley’s wedding, but her mom still won’t stop nagging. The only reason that dress shopping wasn’t an entirely unpleasant experience was that she had her friends with her, who said nice things when her mom and Jamie’s mom, Marianne, started arguing about whether or not the dress of Ashley’s dreams made her look even shorter than she already is.

Waldo eventually came to her rescue and said, “Do you think you look like the most beautiful person in the world?”

And, yes, Ashley did feel like the most beautiful person in the world.

“Then take it,” Sarah said.

Nadira nodded eagerly. “Take it.”

Ashley’s eyes eventually settled on Alex, whose contributions had been pretty straightforward things like,  _I like this one_ , and,  _Maybe not that one_ , up until that point.

Alex only smiled and nodded, and that was that.

Convincing her mom that she really wanted that dress wasn’t even that hard in the end.

“Well, it’s your wedding,” her mom said when Ashley told her that that dress was the one. The problem with,  _Well, it’s your wedding_ , is that is does nothing to hide the fact that her mom isn’t totally happy with the choices Ashley is making.

It’s the same thing now. Her mom isn’t entirely happy with the backyard, but Ashley has a vision.

Tentatively, her mom says, “It’s just that Marianne said–”

“Mom.”

“Ashley, honey, she’ll be your mother-in-law soon and she doesn’t feel like you’re taking her suggestions very seriously.”

That’s because Jamie’s mom also has a vision, and it doesn’t exactly line up with Jamie’s and Ashley’s vision. “Mom, she suggested we should pick lilies for our flower arrangements. Lilies. Guess who hates lilies.”

“Fine, so you don’t like lilies. But that’s just one thing.”

“Well, I didn’t like all the other things either. And neither did Jamie, by the way.”

“All I’m saying is that maybe you should give her ideas some more consideration instead of saying no by default,” her mom says. “We have some experience with weddings. Both of Jamie’s sisters are married. I helped with your cousin Sammy’s wedding. It’s not like we don’t know what we’re talking about. We just want you to have a wonderful day.”

“Thanks, mom,” Ashley says, because she knows there’s no point in disagreeing with any of that. “I gotta go now, sorry, but I have a private lesson at ten.”

“Of course,” her mom says. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

Ashley hangs up and picks up Dylan on her way to the living room. “This day isn’t off to a good start, pumpkin.”

Dylan sinks his claws into her shirt.

Ashley has a feeling that her day isn’t about to magically get better from here on out.

*

“You wanted to talk to me?”

“Nadira, yes, come on in,” Brad says and waves at the chair across from his desk. He sent Nadira an email to tell her that he’d like to speak to her in his office, because apparently he wasn’t able to get up, stick his head out his cubicle and tell her personally.

Nadira sits down and wills herself to be patient as she waits for Brad to finish sorting through the sheets of paper on his desk. He moves his coffee cup, pushes a pen half an inch to the right, and then grabs an article that Nadira recognizes as the one she sent to Brad several days ago. It’s a piece on the women’s league and the position of the Panthers in particular. Nadira was pretty proud of it when she finished it, but Brad is clearly about to make her feel less proud.

“All right,” Brad says, fingers tapping on the table. “Nadira, I don’t think I have to tell you that you’ve written some very detailed and insightful pieces for us. And that’s not something I say lightly. You have talent.” He gives her the  _I’m about to kill your hopes and dreams_  smile. “Having said that, there are some things you need to work on. This…” He taps on her article and shakes his head. “It’s too long. The Panthers, and the women’s league in general, are not relevant enough for an article like this.”

“I see,” Nadira only says.

“It’s a nice enough piece, but it’s not really what I was looking for,” Brad says.

Nadira only stares at him for a moment. She’s not sure how Brad always finds a way to criticize her, even when she wrote him an article that’s nothing less than excellent. She clears her throat and tries to find the right words. Brad quickly becomes unpleasant when you contradict him, so she has to tread carefully. “You asked for an article on the current situation in the women’s league.”

“I did,” Brad says. “Maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I meant things like, who’s currently leading the league, who are the leading scorers, what are the stats in general. Nothing too elaborate. Short and sweet. I know the Panthers have really become your, uh, thing, and I understand, I too am very fond of covering the Cardinals, but we have to think of our readers here and women’s hockey just isn’t… well, it’s not that interesting, is it?”

Nadira decides not to answer that question, because it might have been rhetorical anyway, and she also decides not to pick up the paperweight in front of her and aim it at Brad’s head. “So, would you like me to rewrite the article?”

“It doesn’t have to be a full rewrite, but I definitely need you to shorten it.”

Nadira fakes a bright smile. “Will do.”

“Wonderful. Well, I won’t keep you any longer. It would be so helpful if you could get this done before you leave.”

“Absolutely,” Nadira says and gets up to leave. She stops a few steps away from the door. “Brad?”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering if an article about the players that are going to the Olympics next year might be interesting to our readers? Two players that are usually on the Panthers’ roster are on the national team. Or maybe one about the deal the Grizzlies have with the Bolts since this season? It’s working in Boston, so it might become relevant for the Cardinals and the Panthers at some point soon, too.”

Brad is clearly not too excited about her ideas. “Well, Nadira, I’ll give that some thought, but I don’t think the Cardinals will team up with the Panthers in any way. I don’t see how it would benefit them.”

Nadira sees many ways in which it would benefit them, but she’s not going to get into this with Brad right now. She actually has work to do and she’s covering the Panthers tonight, so she’ll have to leave soon – it’s an away game, so she’s watching it at home. “Okay,” Nadira only says. “I’ll send the game recap to Don tonight.”

“Thank you, Nadira,” Brad says, already sifting through the papers on his desk again and not really paying attention to her.

Hopefully the Panthers will be kind to her tonight.

She needs something good to happen to her.

It’s not just Brad and his refusal to let her write anything that might resemble an interesting article that makes her so mad. It’s also the fact that she hasn’t found an apartment and is still living with Alex and Connor, even though she said that it was temporary, that she was just passing through. It’s also the fact that her videos have approximately 50 viewers and she should be fine with that, because, honestly, what did she expect? That thousands of people would flock to her immediately after the first video was up and that everyone has just been waiting to hear what she has to say? Yeah, right.

She knew it wouldn’t work like that, but she’s still disappointed.

For now, she’ll keep going and see where it leads her, but she needs to find her own place soon. Making those videos in the basement isn’t too awkward when Alex is the only one around, but when she shoots one in the morning after a game and Connor is headed to the rink and milling about upstairs, she feels like she’s being watched.

After she’d posted a few videos, she pulled Connor aside and said, “Okay, just so you know, you can’t watch them. I already feel bad when I say things that aren’t nice about your team, but I have to be able to say that you guys are killing me and not feel guilty about it, okay?”

It took Connor an awkwardly long moment to reply. He blinked down at her, clearly not sure what to say. “Uh, okay,” was all that he eventually said.

Maybe watching Nadira’s videos hadn’t even occurred to him and she was just giving him ideas. In any case, she felt better for like two seconds when she asked him not to watch those videos, and that’s all that matters in the end.

She knows that Alex has been watching them, but he adamantly refuses to tell her what he thinks about them.

The other day she caught him in the kitchen with his phone on the counter, watching her recap of the game against the Eagles. Nadira snuck up behind him and said, “So what do you think?”

Alex only smiled at her, picked up his sandwich and went to the living room, Byron trailing behind him.

Nadira assumes that he doesn’t agree with everything she has to say. And he probably doesn’t want to get into a huge discussion about it. They got into one about last season’s Meyers trade, because Nadira thought it was the most ridiculous move and Alex thought it was the best thing the Ravens have done during the past decade. They talked about it for an hour and Nadira knows how passionate she gets about the Ravens in particular and maybe she was a little too into it, but Alex was being a little shit and at the end of it all they still didn’t agree. Which is fine. It’s just a trade.

It might actually be interesting to have Alex in a video with her, but she’s still working up to that.

Anyway.

Nadira pulls up the article that Brad wants her to butcher with a sigh.

She has work to do.


	34. losses, Chapter 7.3

**losses**

 

**Chapter 7.3**

 

*

**Hartford Panthers**  @panthersNWHL

Providence gets on the board early. #Panthers – 0; Penguins – 1

 

**Hartford Panthers**  @panthersNWHL

Providence again. We’re not off to a good start, but there’s plenty of time for us to score a goal (or five).

*

Sarah isn’t having a good day.

Those days happen. No goalie can win every game. Sometimes it’s hard to tell whose fault it is, if the other team is simply better, or if it’s bad luck, if their defense isn’t doing their job or if the goalie’s having a bad game.

Today it’s easy to tell.

It’s all of those things. The Penguins score about twenty seconds into the game, then again two minutes later. With the first goal, Sarah doesn’t stand a chance; the second one is the result of an unfortunate turnover. The Panthers’ defense is nowhere to be found and Sarah is so thrown off by that early goal that she has trouble settling into the game.

Two goals later, Sarah is waved off the ice.

She gets it. She’s not on top of her game and these things happen, but they don’t happen to her  _often_.

Saila gives her a tap with her stick as she skates past Sarah on her way to the net. Once Sarah is on the bench, Nessie comes over to give her a pat on the back. She doesn’t say anything and it’s probably better that way, because now Sarah is in a mood and people who try to comfort her usually just make her more angry.

The end up losing the game – the final score is 6-1.

The locker room is quiet after the game. They all get out of their gear, shower, and head to the bus. No one’s keen on sticking around for longer than strictly necessary.

They’re in Providence, so she’ll be home in about two hours. At least the bus ride won’t be too long. Sarah hates losing no matter where she is. When they lose at home, she can just go home and curl up under a blanket, but disappointing the home crowd is never easy. When they’re on the road, losses sting, but they sometimes don’t feel quite as bad. Except those games are always followed by a several-hour-long bus ride and the bus tends to be very, very quiet when they lost a game, which gives Sarah a lot of quiet thinking time.

She hates that.

Nessie sits next to her on the bus, but they don’t talk about the game, or anything, for that matter. Nessie watches something on her tablet – probably some extra violent alien movie – and Sarah digs her iPod out of her bag. She opens her Disney Soundtracks folder and turns up the volume.

The music doesn’t quite distract her from how grumpy she is, but it gives her something to focus on, so she won’t keep thinking about what a massive failure she is.

Her phone vibrates in her pocket and Sarah almost wants to ignore it, because she’s not in the mood to talk to anyone right now, but it might be about work, or about her grandpa, so she has to at least check who’s texting her. She doesn’t have to reply; she just has to make sure that she’s not missing anything important.

The texts are all from Nadira. Two are from right after the game. Sarah somehow missed those.

 

**[Nadi]**

_:((_

**[Nadi]**

_I’m sorry you lost, that was a really tough game :/_

**[Nadi]**

_just in case you wanna hang out later…. you know where to find me_

All Sarah says in response is,  _thank you_. She doesn’t know if she wants to be around people when she gets home. Maybe she’ll want to curl up under a blanket and hate herself, maybe she’ll want to go out and party and hate herself.

Maybe she’ll want to hang out with Nadira – and probably also Connor and Alex – and eat a bunch of crappy food and try not to hate herself that much and remember that bad games happen. She usually isn’t this mad about losses, this isn’t the first time she’s lost a game, but she got pulled. That’s what really makes her mad.

Sarah sighs and unlocks her phone again –  _see you later, i’ll bring snacks_.

*

“Just give me a call when you’ve decided and then we can talk about what you want to do for the party,” Alex says.

Finn glances over his shoulder to grin at him. Parties are always good for them. Alex usually has to cancel the public skate for private parties, but those parties pay well and often enough they also get one or two of the skating instructors involved.

They’re both in the front office, Finn at the register, Alex leaning against the wall behind him. He was taking care of the rental skates when Finn waved him over to answer the phone. Finn asked if he could take a few extra shifts, and since Finn is one of Alex’s favorite people to have around at the rink, he obviously tried to make it work somehow. That ended with both of them being here on a Saturday night, with a very crowded public skate going on in one rink and a hockey game in the other one.

“Great, thank you so much,” Mrs. Allen says on the other end of the line. She books a rink twice a year for her daughters’ birthday parties and Alex is extra nice to her, because he’d like it very much if she continued doing that.

“You’re very welcome. I’ll talk to you soon.” Alex hangs up and lets out a deep breath. “All right…” He picks up their event calendar and writes down the date for the party. He’ll add the details as soon as he has them. “You always work at the Allen kids’ birthday parties, right?”

Finn nods. “They love me.”

“Well, you did teach both of them how to skate.”

“I sure did. I’m a wizard.” Finn peers out the window. “Do you think we have a lot of people still coming for the public skate?”

“Don’t think so,” Alex says. They’re halfway through the public skate and he’s pretty sure that at this point people will have trouble finding parking spaces out there. It’s a good night for them. With the hockey game going on, people are in line for the concession stand as well.

Finn hums.

“Can you–” Alex groans when the phone in his pocket starts ringing. That’s his private number. Not too many people have that one. It might be Nadira who’s calling him; actually, he hopes it’s Nadira. Connor is currently playing against the Grizzles –  _losing_  against the Grizzlies, he should say. Or at least the Cardinals weren’t doing so well the last time he checked. They were down by three goals after the first. Anyway, it’s definitely not Connor.

Alex pries his phone out of his pocket, Finn looking on, clearly amused.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Those jeans are hot, but you need to learn how to get your phone without looking like an idiot.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Alex mutters and glances at the screen. It’s his mom.

“Who is it? Going by the look on your face it’s the fucking grim reaper.”

“My mom.”

“Oh,” Finn says. “Worse than the grim reaper.”

“If I don’t answer, she’ll leave me a really annoying, guilt-trippy voicemail and it’ll ruin my day when I listen to it, and talking to her is also going to ruin my day, so the question is, should I just get it over with or should I postpone having my day ruined?”

“Get it over with,” Finn says.

Alex groans and picks up the phone. “Hey, mom.”

“Alex, sweetheart, how are you?”

“I’m good, how are you?”

“Good, thanks for asking,” his mom says. “Sorry for calling so late, but I had a few busy days and it couldn’t wait.”

“Oh?”

Maybe he should be worried.

“Your dad will be in Boston with his team on Monday–”

Nope, no need to worry after all.

“–and I thought, since the two of you so rarely talk, it might be a nice surprise if you went up there to say hello. It’s not so far. Might be fun. And I think–”

“Mom,” Alex interrupts.

“Yes?”

“No,” Alex only says.

His mom sighs quietly. “Alexander. You have to cut your dad some slack. I know he wasn’t always around as much as he wanted to be and I know that you two have had some trouble regarding your, uh, occupation, but you know he’ll always support you in the end.”

“I’m still not going up to Boston.”

Finn turns around and shakes his head at him.

“Your dad misses you. I miss you,” his mom says. “We just want to know how you’re doing.”

“I’m doing fine,” Alex says. “We literally talked last weekend.”

“For five minutes, sweetheart.”

“There just aren’t too many exciting things going on right now.”

“There must be some things going on in your life.”

Alex is about two seconds away from making up some bullshit emergency so he’ll get out of this phone call. “Well, what do you wanna know?” Alex asks. Maybe if he cooperates, he won’t have to have this conversation all over again a week from now.

“How are things at the rink?”

“Good,” Alex says.

“And how are Connor and Nadira?”

“Good.”

The second  _good_  sends Finn into a silent laughing fit and Alex kicks at his shin, because this isn’t funny, but that only makes Finn laugh harder.

“Shh,” Alex says.

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just Finn,” Alex says. “I’m still at work.”

“Oh,  _Finn_. How’s Finn doing?”

“Finn, how are you doing?” Alex asks, holding up his phone.

“Doing fine, Mrs. Goldman,” Finn shouts.

“He’s fine,” Alex echoes. “Anything else you want to know or can I go, because I do have some things going on here.”

“All right,” his mom says. “Just one more thing. Your dad will be busy over the holidays and they only get a short break, but I thought maybe I could come by for a couple of days before the holidays?”

“Sure,” Alex says. It’s not like he can say no to that. It’s her house, she can come by whenever she wants to. “I’m sorry, I gotta go.”

“Of course, have a good evening.”

“You too,” Alex says.

“You’re such an ass,” Finn says as soon as Alex has hung up the phone. “And the worst thing is that you’re an ass to your mom. Your mom is  _nice_. Your mom made sure you got the rink. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I–”

Finn holds up his hand. “Actually, don’t answer that, we both know what’s wrong with you.”

“We do?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. “You’re mad at your mom, because she wants you to get along with your dad, because she thinks you have to love him just because he’s your dad, but it doesn’t work like that and she doesn’t understand that and that’s why you’re angry. But you still didn’t have to be such an ass.”

“I’m glad you have me all figured out,” Alex mutters.

“I know, right? You don’t need a therapist as long as you have me,” Finn says. “And while we’re at it… You need to get laid. It’s been like a hundred years and that also makes you grumpy. I would know.”

“Please…”

“No, I’m serious.”

“I have roommates now,” Alex says.

Finn raises his eyebrows in question. “And?”

“They don’t know.”

That seems to actually give Finn pause. “You never told Connor?”

“No.”

Alex can count the people who know that he’s gay on one hand.

It’s not like he never considered telling Connor. Even back when they were just teenagers, he knew he could trust Connor, he knew that Connor would be a good person to tell, but in the end he decided to keep his mouth shut. Then he told Nick a while later. And then he didn’t tell anyone else until he was at college. Two guys knew. His captain and his best friend. Then he told Finn, a few years later. And that’s it.

“Did I miss something? Is there a real douchebag under that soft hockey bro exterior?” Finn asks.

Alex shakes his head. “Connor’s great.”

“But you don’t want to tell him?”

“I do.”

“Then why–”

“I don’t know, okay?” Alex takes a deep breath. “I don’t know.”

“Seems to be a theme with you,” Finn says softly. He’s not wrong. He smiles, stands up and nods at the chair. “You wanna stay here? I’ll do the rentals.”

“No, it’s fine. I’m fine. Stay here and I’ll deal with rental hell.”

Alex likes rental hell. It keeps him busy. And when the public skate is over, he’ll take care of the ice and he’ll have a few minutes of silence and then he’ll go home and sit on the couch with Byron, who’s currently dozing under the table.

He leaves Finn to it, checks in on the public skate and the game – the Vikings are currently leading 5-1 – and then returns to the rental skate booth. People start to leave soon enough, those who have other places to go on this Saturday night, and those who want to beat the rush of everyone handing back their rentals at the same time at the very end of the public skate.

It doesn’t take long for a line to form, but Alex knows his rental booth. It’s where he spent most of his time when he first started working here.

The game is still going when everyone’s left. Ten minutes left on the clock.

Alex closes up the rental skate booth and finds Finn, who’s lounging in the chair in the front office, smiling when Alex appears.

“Look at that,” Finn says. “We made it. You need help with anything?”

Alex grins. “How about you go and watch the love of your life kick ass in goal?”

“Alex,” Finn says. “My darling. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but also thank you and I owe you one.” Finn flits out of the office, pats Alex on the back in passing and quickly runs down the hall to watch the rest of the game.

Alex locks up the front office and makes his way downstairs to take the Zamboni across the ice. He passes Christina and Brady on the stairs as they leave. They’re both in Finn’s advanced skaters group on Tuesday afternoon and they usually oversee the public skates on weekends.

Before he takes the Zamboni across the ice, he pries his phone out of his pocket again. He just wants to check on how Connor is doing.

The Cardinals game isn’t over yet, but it’s not looking too good. The Cardinals’ backup started in goal, but now Grenier is in. Not that Alex doesn’t believe in ridiculous comebacks, they happen all the time, but the current score is 6-3 and they don’t have too much time left on the clock. The only good news is that Connor has assists on two of the Cardinals’ three goals, but that won’t mean much if they don’t win the game as well.

On the way home, Alex is going to buy something extremely unhealthy that’ll make Connor extremely happy.


	35. losses, Chapter 7.4

**losses**

 

**Chapter 7.4**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Yoshi…..

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

YOSHI WHY

*

“I don’t get it. I just… She’s never been like this. And suddenly she wants me to do whatever she wants? But then she keeps saying, ‘Oh, it’s your wedding,’ but she clearly…” Ashley takes a deep breath. “She  _clearly_  hates every single thing I’m doing.”

“Okay, but it really is  _your_  wedding,” Nadria says.

Ashley slams her glass down on the table. “I know that.”

Sarah clears her throat. “So–”

“Listen,” Ashley says, “my mom and I get along. We do. We’ve been a team for such a long time. Like, when I started skating she was so supportive and she wanted me to live my dream and, sure, we argued sometimes, but she never tried to interfere with my skating or my routines  or my costumes or anything. She let me do my thing. And now… all of a sudden… she won’t let me do my thing anymore.”

Sarah sighs softly. She knows what it’s like to have some difficulties with parents who aren’t exactly fond of your life choices. Well, her dad was never opposed to the choices Sarah made; but her mom never liked that she wanted to play hockey. And if she was getting married… Her mom would actually insist on taking over the planning and it would take several arguments to get her to stop.

“I understands that she just wants me to have a nice wedding, but why does she suddenly act like I can’t decide what a nice wedding entails?”

“Maybe–” Nadira starts, but Ashley wasn’t done yet.

“And she keeps going on and on about how I need to take what Marianne says into account,” Ashley grumbles. “Don’t get me wrong, I love Marianne, she’s so lovely, but all the things she likes are things I don’t like.”

Sarah and Nadira are both quiet for a moment, waiting for Ashley to go on, but this time she only huffs and picks up one of the fluffy pillows to hug. Alex has a truly exceptional couch – it’s huge and it’s covered in pillows and fuzzy blankets and if Sarah lived here, she’d never leave this couch.

When she got here half an hour ago, Ashley was already here, shoving pizza into her mouth and muttering angrily about one of the girls she’s coaching. They have the Cardinals game up on the TV and Nadira is wearing a  _Rivera_  Cardinals hoodie.

“Have you talked to Jamie about it?” Sarah asks.

“Yeah. He said that they can suggest whatever they want, we’re still the people who make the final calls, and that’s true, but it just annoys me, you know?”

“Yeah,” Nadira says.

Sarah nods.

“Anyway…” Ashley waves her hand dismissively. “Please tell me that good things happened to you guys today.”

“I got pulled in the first period,” Sarah says. At this point, she’s actually mostly over it. Well. It still bugs her, but she’s at least convinced herself that all she can do now is make sure that she’s better next time. Today’s game is over. She needs to focus on the next one. But maybe not right now.

Ashley makes a face and turns to look at Nadira.

“Well,” Nadira says, “Brad thinks–”

She’s interrupted by Ashley and Sarah groaning. Sarah has heard much about Brad and if she ever sees him, she’ll probably have to punch him in the face.

“Yeah, exactly,” Nadira says and rolls her eyes. “Also, my videos suck. Or no one cares about them.”

“You just need some time to build a fanbase,” Ashley says.

“And you should tweet more,” Sarah adds.

“Post pictures of Byron.”

“Yeah, people love dogs.”

Nadira snorts. “He’s not even my dog.”

“Waldo’s Instagram is just pictures of Byron,” Ashley says. “Seriously, you’d think he’s his dog.”

“Okay, but that’s just one more reason for me not to post any pictures. I don’t want anyone at work to figure out that I know Waldo. Or that I  _live_  with him.”

“Do you really think that Brad is smart enough to figure it out?” Ashley asks.

“Probably not,” Sarah says.

Nadira smirks. For about one second. Then her eyes settle on the TV. “The Grizzlies scored  _again_? When did that happen?”

Sarah looks up. The score is now 7–3 and David Santana looks like he’s about to kill a man.

“Why are they like this?” Nadira says, waving her hand at the TV. The Cardinals are in the offensive zone and Liam Hellström just rang one off the post. “This is bad. They’re  _bad_.”

“I mean, they’ve scored three goals,” Ashley says.

“Yeah, but that’s just because apparently Waldo can read Nick Rivera’s mind or some shit. Like, those passes? Amazing.”

“Waldo and Santa are good together, too,” Sarah says.

“Oh, they totally are.” Nadira nods, her eyes fixed on the TV. “But that… WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT, YOSHI? I LOVE YOU BUT GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS.”

Sarah picks up a bag of Doritos and hides her grin behind it.

The Cardinals aren’t having that bad of a season, it’s not like they’re losing game after game. It seems that Nadira is just exceptionally angry about this game in particular. And it’s kind of endearing. Sarah looks away.

Not a minute later, Nick is headed to the penalty box for a tripping call.

“That’s bullshit, Samuels fucking tripped himself,” Nadira says. “Look at the replay… Look at that… Nick isn’t even– Fuck this.” She throws her phone on the table.

Nick argues with the ref all the way to the box, looking somewhat like an angry kitten when he sits down. The Cardinals thankfully kill off the penalty – Sarah is pretty sure that Nadira would have thrown something at the TV if the Grizzlies had scored another goal.

By the time the second intermission rolls around, Nadira has buried herself under several pillows.

“You okay, Nadi?” Sarah asks.

Nadira only groans in reply.

Sarah pats the pillow that’s on Nadira’s face. “They’ll win the next one.”

“They’ve lost three in a row,” Nadira grumbles. “Alex needs to come home, I want to pet the dog.”

“There’s a hockey game at the rink tonight, so he’ll probably come back late.”

“Ugh.”

“Here,” Sarah says and hands Nadira one of the fluffy pillows.

“This extremely soft pillow can’t save me now.”

“Oh, boy…” Ashley says.

“What?” Sarah looks back up at the TV, where Connor and Martin Travers of the Boston Grizzlies are having a heated exchange. “Nadi, you might wanna get rid of that pillow.”

“Is Byron back?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t care.”

“Are you sure?” Ashley says. “Connor is totally about to murder Travers.”

Nadira shoots up straight. “ _What_?”

*

Travers has been looking for a fight all evening.

At first he was just poking and prodding at Connor, chirping him, but Connor wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. Now they’re behind four goals and Connor isn’t sure if there’s any way for them to still win this game, but he’s starting to think that a fight might wake up the guys.

Connor might indulge him. Later. At some point.

The next time they’re on the ice together, Travers goes after Caleb – it’s Caleb’s second NHL season and he’s mostly been a healthy scratch so far this season and Caleb isn’t exactly a huge guy. So he falls right over when Travers skates into him. And Connor can’t have that. Caleb was nowhere even close to the puck.

Connor knows that Barnie is on the ice with them and that he’d punch Travers right in the face if he was any closer, but Connor is pretty much next to them when it happens, so all he has to do is drop his gloves and grab Travers by the jersey. Travers gets one punch in, but after that he doesn’t really stand a chance. Connor has him flat on the ice only a few seconds later.

It’s not the last fight of the game. It’s also not the last fight Connor gets involved in. Halfway through the third period, Nick gets high-sticked in the face, Bunny gets involved and Connor ends up pulling Santa off a Grizzlies forward that turns out to be no other than Martin Travers. When Connor sees that it’s him, he doesn’t pull so hard anymore and tries to find himself the closest Grizzlies player to keep out of the mess that’s currently in a huddle behind their net. Jordie is hovering by the goal, looking on with a vaguely amused expression.

“Don’t touch my guys!”

“Your  _guys_ are fuckin’ pussies.”

“I’m gonna call your mom after the game and tell her that you’re using words like that.”

Connor doesn’t manage to grab himself a Grizzlies player, so he pulls the guy who got Nick out of the huddle and frees Nick, who’d been pushed against the glass, struggling to get away. The refs are busy pulling Bunny and Samuels apart and are trying to get Santa off of Travers.

“You okay?” Connor asks Nick.

Nick only nods. He has a small cut next to his chin, but it’s not bleeding too badly. Anyway, that’s a four-minute power play for them. Probably. Who knows what other penalties they’re going to end up getting for this scrum.

It doesn’t matter in the end.

When the end of the third period rolls around, the score is 8–4 and everyone’s quick to get off the ice afterwards, but Nick somehow still finds it in him to hand his stick to a tiny fan who’s hanging over the railing. Someone gives Connor a tap as they head down the tunnel and when Connor looks over his shoulder, he sees that Yoshi is right behind him. He doesn’t look too happy, but apparently he thinks that Connor did a well enough job.

Connor isn’t sure if he agrees. One of those goals was definitely his fault, because he didn’t stick with Samuels and went after Mikkelsen instead. And, sure, mistakes like that happen, but today they made eight mistakes and now the locker room is quiet as they all get out of their gear.

A few seats over, Nick gets put on media duty and he looks like he’d just love to throw his jockstrap at someone.

Connor quietly makes for the showers and stays there for a much longer time than he usually would. But Nick is talking to the media and he gave Connor a ride to the arena tonight, so it’s not like he’s in a hurry.

Nick seems grumpy when they walk to the car, so Connor doesn’t try to strike up a conversation. He’s not sure what he’d say anyway.

In the car, Nick sighs, and says, “I think I’ve forgotten how to score goals.”

“Shut up,” Connor says. Nick has been assisting on goals left and right, on his line, on the power play, and he doesn’t quite have a point streak going, but he’s had a bunch of multiple-point games during the past few weeks. They both assisted on two goals together tonight. It feels nice under all the frustration.

Nick huffs. “We’re not winning games.”

Yeah. They’re not winning games.

“You had a good night,” Nick says as he pulls out of his parking spot.

“Yeah, but…” Does it matter when they still don’t manage to win the game in the end?

“I know,” Nick says. “Still. Final score would have looked different if you hadn’t been out there. That’s something.”

Connor hums and tries not to feel too proud of himself when Nick is looking totally miserable. “You’ll remember how to score.”

Nick doesn’t reply, he just stares straight ahead as he heads towards the highway.

“Nick…”

“It’s fine,” Nick mutters. “It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah…” Connor doesn’t really buy it. Mainly because Nick sounds about as unenthusiastic as humanly possible, but also because it’s just a stupid standard response. It sounds like Nick is talking to the media. “You wanna come to my place?” Connor asks. “Hang out for a bit?”

“Uh–”

“I’m sure Alex wouldn’t mind,” Connor says. Actually, he’s not a hundred percent sure, but Nick is clearly feeling like crap and he could probably use some quality time with Byron.

Nick smirks. “I’m sure he would.”

“Whatever. The house is huge, we can just hide in the basement.”

Nick only shakes his head and drives on and doesn’t say a word. When they make it to Cedar Mills, Nick goes right past the neighborhood he lives in.

It seems they actually are hanging out tonight.


	36. losses, Chapter 7.5

**losses**

 

**Chapter 7.5**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

someone give the ravens a call and tell them that the game has started, they’re still asleep

*

Alex takes the long way home and stops at  _Giuliana’s_. They usually have desserts in the front of the restaurant in a huge glass showcase. They have tiramisu, and biscotti and cannoli, but they also have some things that are maybe not typically Italian – a random assortment of cakes and brownies.

He goes for three pieces of chocolate cake, because he’s not going to bring home food and not get any for Nadira, then he orders a bunch of cake pops, because he knows they’ll make Connor smile.

Byron, in the back of the car, is clearly interested in the big paper bag that Alex drops on the passenger seat.

“Not for you, buddy,” Alex says and makes his way home.

Cedar Mills is pretty much dead, even though it’s a Saturday evening. Most of the cars are parked in front of  _Giuliana’s_  and then another handful down the street, in front of the bar. That’s it. Everything else is closed. If you go on the highway and get off at the second exit there’s a handful of fast food chains and a Trader Joe’s that Alex avoids like the plague, because half the population of the state of Connecticut is in there on any given day.

When he pulls up to the house, he passes three cars on the patch of gravel beside the garage. One of them is Nadira’s. It has its designated spot. He knows the other two as well. They’re usually parked next to his at the rink. Sarah and Ashley.

Alex is slowly but surely getting used to having this many people at his house all the time. Sure, his parents were around sometimes, his mom more than his dad, but it was still just him. And then Byron joined him, but Byron doesn’t talk, and he doesn’t know how to open the fridge, so he doesn’t steal his food, and he sure as hell doesn’t leave socks all over the house.

Having roommates isn’t so bad, though. They help you out, they do the grocery shopping and they offer to feed your dog when you’re not around.

As soon as Alex opens the door, Nadira shouts from the living room, “Byron, is that you?”

Byron instantly darts off, because someone in the living room clearly wants to pet him and he obviously can’t miss out on that.

Alex follows him, a little slower – he’s been walking around a lot today and his leg is starting to hurt, which is not improving his day in the slightest. He’s greeted by Nadira, Ashley and Sarah, all three of them on the couch, with all the pillows and blankets they have, the table covered in chocolate wrappers, a bowl of popcorn, a bowl of Doritos, an empty pizza carton and a bunch of empty takeout containers from the Chinese place that’s around the corner from the rink that the Panthers play at. Nadira has brought home food from that place many times when she was at the rink to cover a game.

“Hey,” Alex says and flops down next to Ashley.

“ _Hiii_ ,” Nadira says, but she’s looking down at Byron and stroking his ears, so maybe that wasn’t directed at Alex.

“We all had a bit of a day,” Ashley says, “so we decided to hang out and be grumpy together.”

“Well, I’m definitely in the right place, then,” Alex says.

Nadira tears her eyes away from Byron, who immediately moves on to the next person, and puts his head in Sarah’s lap. “What’s wrong?”

“Did something happen at the rink?” Sarah asks.

Alex shakes his head. “Nothing like that. My mom called…” He shrugs. It doesn’t really matter. It’s not terrible. His parents aren’t terrible parents. Mostly, they were absent, and when they weren’t, his mom was hovering, and his dad was trying to dictate his entire life.

“Ugh, moms,” Ashley says.

Alex raises his eyebrows at her. Ashley’s mom is usually a very pleasant person. A bit chatty. A bit nosy. But Ashley hardly ever has problems with her.

“Wedding stuff.” Ashley waves him off before he can even think about asking further questions. “Watch us elope and get married in Atlantic City in a couple of weeks.”

“Gimme a call before you do that,” Nadira says. “I’ll drive you.”

Sarah snorts.

“You’re not gonna elope,” Alex says, because he’s known Ashley for a long time and he knows exactly what kind of wedding she wants. Atlantic City was never, and will never be, part of the plan.

Ashley rolls her eyes. “Yeah, whatever, I’m not gonna elope.” She smiles brightly. “So, Alex… What’s in the bag?”

“I bought cake. Because Waldo lost his game.”

“Chocolate cake from  _Giuliana’s_?” Nadira asks. “Man, Waldo is so lucky.”

“You know, I lost a game today, too,” Sarah chimes in. “I got pulled.”

Alex grins. “Well, I guess you can have Nadira’s slice.”

“You got me cake?” Nadira asks and leans over and gently plucks the paper bag out of Alex’s hand. She opens it and her eyes go wide. “Friends, he got cake pops.”

“Hey, uh,” Sarah peers into the bag as well, “can I live here, too?”

“You can sleep on the horrible couch in the basement,” Alex says.

“Sure. Sounds great.”

“I slept on the horrible couch last New Year’s Eve,” Ashley says. “My back hurt for like a week. It’s worse than my couch at home.”

“So,” Nadira says and pulls the container with the cake pops out of the bag, “there are six of these.”

“Yep.”

“Which means we can all have one? And we’ll leave two for Waldo.”

“And we can split the chocolate cake.”

“Amazing.”

Nadira starts handing out cake pops and then bites into one with a happy sigh.

“So, what happened to you?” Alex asks.

“Brad…”

Alex groans. He’s never met Brad, but he sort of second-hand hates him.

“Yeah, he gets it,” Sarah says.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.”

“What?”

“Nadi, you okay?”

Nadira is glaring at the TV. The Ravens are in Seattle tonight. Alex wasn’t really paying attention and the volume’s turned down, but now he glances at the TV as well. The Ravens are down by two and the replay’s showing Driscoll, one of Seattle’s alternate captains, running into the Ravens’ goalie.

Driscoll is immediately surrounded by several Ravens players. A moment later they’re joined by the rest of the Sailors that are on the ice.

When several players from both teams are being escorted to their respective penalty boxes, the camera cuts to the Sailors’ bench. Alex’s dad is right there, looking exceptionally displeased. Alex knows that face.  

He’s also aware that everyone in the room is looking at him. Alex looks back at them. Yeah. That’s his dad. He’s on TV a lot during the hockey season. That’s just the way it is.

Nadira is the first one who turns back to the TV. “Why do they always suck so much?”

“Bad coaching. Bad management. Not enough off-season moves. Actually,  _bad_  off-season moves,” Alex says. “Except for the Meyers trade.”

Nadira huffs. “Okay. You can stop now.”

*

“Looks like Nadi’s having friends over as well,” Connor says as Nick parks his car on the gravel, next to a bunch of other cars that are parked next to the house. Nick doesn’t recognize any of them.

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m coming over?” Nick asks.

He wasn’t too certain about this to begin with, because he doesn’t know what the deal is with him and Alex. Showing up at the rink is one thing, but this is Alex’s house. It’s where he lives. And, okay, Connor lives here too, so he can probably invite people over whenever he wants, but… Well, he just knows that Alex won’t be happy to see him.

Anyway, maybe he won’t run into Alex at all. It’s a big house. And it’s late. Alex might be in bed already.

He follows Connor up the steps and into the house. They’re greeted by Alex’s dog, who immediately pads over to Nick, nudging his hand, tail wagging.

“You’ve met Byron before, huh?” Connor asks.

“Yeah.” Nick kneels down, so he can pet Byron properly. “At the rink.”

“Right,” Connor says. “You want a beer or anything?”

“Just water.”

“We also have–”

Connor is interrupted by a loud, “What the  _fuck_  are you doing? WHAT THE FUCK DO THEY PAY YOU 4.1 MILLION DOLLARS FOR?” It’s followed by several people giggling.

Byron barks quietly and scurries back to the living room.

“Nadira,” Connor whispers. “The Ravens are playing.”

“Ah,” Nick says.

“Let’s just…” Connor nods at the living room. “Let’s say hi, I guess.”

Nick trails after Connor, feeling a little awkward. He always feels awkward in other people’s houses.

He feels even more awkward when he walks into the living room with Connor and the first person he sees is Alex, sitting on the couch with Nadira, Sarah and Ashley. They all stare at them and for a moment the only sound is the commentary on TV before they cut to a commercial break.

Connor clears his throat. “I brought a friend.”

“Yeah, hi,” Nadira says.

Ashley waves at them.

Nick doesn’t miss that Sarah’s eyes dart to Alex before she smiles at him.

“Hi,” Nick says.

Alex doesn’t say hi. He only nods and turns his eyes back to the TV.

“So… we had a bit of a day,” Connor says.

“Yeah, we saw,” Sarah replies. “And I’m allowed to say that because… hard same.”

“Sorry,” Nick says. Sarah is a goalie. They often end up taking the blame when it’s usually not  _just_ their fault when a game goes south.

Sarah blinks at him. “It’s fine, I’m, like, ninety-eight percent over it.” She holds up a plate that has half a piece of chocolate cake on it. “This is gonna help me with the other two percent.”

“Nice,” Connor says. He gives Nick a pat on the back. “I’ll get you some water.”

Connor leaves and Nick doesn’t react quickly enough, so he ends up hovering in the middle of the living room. It’s sort of too late to follow Connor, so he should sit down, but the only available spot on the couch is next to Alex. It’s also weird if he just keeps standing here, though.

Whatever. He’s having a terrible day. He hasn’t scored in what feels like fifty years. He wants to sit down. So he does.

Alex glances at him, his expression unreadable.

Nick presses his lips together and trains his eyes on the Ravens game. They’re playing against the Sailors. He almost wants to look back at Alex now. His dad is on TV, shouting at a ref from the bench for a penalty that wasn’t exactly a penalty. Collins still ends up going to the box, and the Ravens are going on the power play. Nadira is sitting at the edge of the couch, ignoring or not even realizing that Byron is sniffing at her hand.

“Hey,” Nick whispers and holds out his hand. Byron perks up and comes over, putting his head on Nick’s knee.

Next to him, Alex huffs quietly, but Nick can’t be sure if it’s directed at him or at the breakaway one of the Sailors just went on.  

Connor returns from the kitchen and hands Nick a bottle of water. “Okay, ladies, I’m gonna need you to scoot,” he says and plops down between Sarah and Ashley when they make room for him. Nadira is still at the edge of the couch, not really paying attention to what else is happening around here.

“So,” Connor starts, but Nadira slaps his knee.

“Power play,” Sarah whispers.

“So I’m not allowed to speak?” Connor asks. “They’re in Seattle. They can’t hear me, I’m not distracting them.”

“Shush,” Nadira says.

Nick smirks and he can see that Alex is smirking, too.

Once the power play is over, Nadira takes a deep breath. “Okay. Now you can talk.”

“So,” Connor says. “Do we really want the Ravens to win?”

“Yes,” Nadira and Alex say simultaneously.

Now Nick turns to look Alex. Alex looks back at him and shrugs.

Connor reaches over Sarah and pokes Alex. “Hey. They’re in our division. We don’t want them to get points. We want them to lose every single game.”

“Keep talking,” Nadira mumbles. “They thrive when people talk shit about them.”

“Anyway,” Alex says quietly, “chances are they will lose every single game.”

Nadira throws a balled-up napkin at him. “Whose side are you on, Goldman?”

“He’s on  _my_  side,” Connor says. “Alex, come on, tell me that we’re gonna win more games than the Ravens.”

“I mean, you most likely will,” Alex says.

“ _Most likely?_ ”

Alex laughs.

“I know we currently suck a bit,” Connor says, “I admit that, we’re having some issues. Some teeny tiny issues. We just need to score more. And allow fewer goals.”

Nick honestly wishes it was as easy as it sounds. Score more. Allow fewer goals. Sure. They can do that.

Except that they obviously can’t.

“Aw…” Ashley pats Connor’s arm, picks up a plate and puts half a slice of cake on it. “Here you go. Eat that.” She nods at the rest of the cake. “Nick, would you like some, too?”

Nick shakes his head.

“Oh, honey,” Ashley says. “It’ll be okay.”

Nick knows that they won’t lose every game between now and the end of the season, but right now it sort of feels like it. He leans back with a sigh and watches as the Ravens get scored on again. Byron still has his head on his knee and it’s oddly comforting.

Without saying a word, Alex leans forward and pulls a cake pop out of a box on the table. He tips it towards Nick.

Nick frowns at it.

Alex tips it a little more.

He’s being nice. Alex is being nice to him in the most  _Alex_  way possible, gruffly, without saying a word.

Tentatively, Nick reaches out and takes it. He doesn’t say a word either.


	37. winter, Chapter 8.1

**winter**

 

**Chapter 8.1**

 

*

**Helena Ness**  @nessie88

Find someone who looks at you the way @sassalbright looks at the snow on her windowsill #truelove

|

**Sarah Albright**  @sassalbright

my entire car is covered in snow, I’m not excited anymore

*

“Nadira?”

Nadira looks up from her computer and finds Charlie hovering next to her desk, hugging a stack of photocopies to his chest. He always has this vaguely lost expression on his face. She honestly feels a little bad for him, because Brad hardly ever gives him anything substantial to do.

Charlie is supposed to be writing a big piece about college hockey – he is a senior in college and he spends a few hours a week at the  _Gazette_. Nadira is starting to think that he might be better off writing for his college newspaper, because there he’d actually be, well,  _writing_. Here he’s just hovering in the background, waiting for Brad to actually give him something to do.

“What’s up?” Nadira asks. She almost asks him if he needs help, but she doesn’t want to assume that he does simply because he’s an intern. She was an intern once and while she was oftentimes completely and utterly lost, she didn’t always need someone else to tell her what to do.

“I was wondering…” Charlie fiddles with the stack of papers he’s carrying. “Can you… in your lunch break… do you… can we… can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” Nadira says.

“Sorry,” Charlie whispers. “I… thank you.” He quickly walks away to their intern desk. It’s crammed into a corner behind Nadira’s desk. It has the worst computer, the worst phone, and the worst chair.

Nadira assumes that Charlie needs help with his article and didn’t want to ask with Brad lurking in his cubicle. He’s on the phone right now, but nothing escapes Brad, especially not a chance to call their intern incompetent. Again. He doesn’t do it in front of Charlie, but the other day Nadira walked in on Brad grumbling about how Charlie never does exactly what he asked for. Which is true. Charlie usually does exactly what he was asked to do and then a little  _more_  than that, because he works harder than anyone else in this office.

That kid just really wants to impress Brad, because he’s hoping that Brad will let him write more articles.

When it’s time for her lunch break, Nadira grabs her sandwich, stays in her chair and rolls over to the intern desk, where Charlie is currently digging into a Tupperware box with what looks a lot like cold mac and cheese. He drops his fork when he spots Nadira rolling towards him.

“So,” Nadira says. “What’s this about?”

“Well…” Charlie says as he picks his fork off the floor. He stares down at it and for a moment he looks like he’s seriously considering wiping it on his shirt. Instead, he puts it on the table, carpet fuzz sticking to it, his eyes darting to Brad’s cubicle.

Brad’s not happy with the cubicle. He wants an office. A real office. But the sports section isn’t exactly huge. It’s just three of them, and Charlie on a few days every week, and some other occasional interns that come passing through here and there.

“He’s out for lunch,” Nadira says. She saw him leave about two minutes ago. Often enough, Brad isn’t even around this time of day. He’s either at A&P or at the Cardinals’ practice rink, asking boring questions that none of the players feel like answering.

“Oh, okay,” Charlie says, not even trying to hide that he doesn’t want Brad to listen in. “Yeah, so, I don’t want this to sound creepy, but I found your videos. Like, actually my friend found them and he sent me a link and I was like, ‘Whoa, dude, I know her.’ Anyway… those are pretty cool.”

Okay, this really isn’t what Nadira was expecting and she has yet to figure out if she likes where this is going.  “Uh, thank you?”

“Yeah, you’re… saying some smart things there. And I was wondering… So, my friend, and his brother and I are doing this weekly hockey podcast. And my friend’s brother actually works for CTSN, like, he has credentials and they might put the podcast on their website. The thing is, my friend Jonny and I are both in college, so we’re not exactly big in the business, but we need someone where we can say, ‘Hey, this person knows what they’re talking about’, you know?”

“Okay?”

“What I’m saying is… you know what you’re talking about.”

“I… do?” Nadira isn’t really sure why that came out sounding like a question. “Huh. Yeah. I do.”

Charlie nods his head excitedly. “So, what do you think?”

“About your podcast?”

“Do you wanna join us?” Charlie asks. “We usually record on Sundays, for like an hour, but if you can’t do Sundays–”

“No, Sundays are fine. Usually. Depends on the time.”

“Nice.” Charlie’s smile is wider than Nadira has ever seen it. “You could talk about the Panthers. Or, like, whatever you want to talk about. We do focus on the Cardinals, but we also talk about what else is happening in the league. So, whatever you think is interesting? Anyway, I’ll text to you the time and the address. And if you can’t come it’s also fine.”

“Yeah. Sure. Okay.”

Nadira isn’t sure if saying yes to this is a good idea. Maybe she should give that podcast a listen first, because at this point she has no idea what she’s getting into. Whatever. She’ll check out those guys, just to make sure she’s not going to some random person’s house and she’ll definitely tell Connor and Alex to come looking for her if she doesn’t come home. But she’ll go. And she’ll say some super smart things on those guys’ podcast.

Even if they only have, like, three listeners, she wouldn’t write it off as a waste of time. As long as she has a good time, it won’t be.

It’s like with her videos. She has fun doing them, and maybe the handful of viewers she has aren’t exactly impressive, but she’s having a blast recording them after every game in Alex’s basement.

When she leaves the office that evening, Charlie shoots her a secretive smile.

_Shit_. She’s conspiring with the intern.

The thought fills her with so much glee that she even smiles at Brad when she heads out the door.

*

“Headed home?”

Sarah stops in her tracks. She just got her bag from the back office, where they all leave their stuff when they’re at the rink – Wednesday is a short day for her. She’s usually here until noon and helps out with skate rentals, then Ashley comes in and takes over. She practically runs the rink with Finn on Wednesdays. “I’m actually meeting Nadi for lunch,” Sarah says.

She’s not sure why she feels bad about it. Maybe because Ashley usually also gets invited, only this time it didn’t even occur to Sarah to tell Ashley about this little lunch meet-up.

Well… Sarah clears her throat. “I’d ask you if you want to come, but…” Sarah waves at the skate rentals booth. It’s not like Ashley could come anyway.

“Yeah.” Ashley laughs. “You guys have fun and promise you’ll share all the hot gossip with me tomorrow.”

“Of course,” Sarah says.

She’s not really sure why she’s relieved. Because she likes Ashley, and she likes hanging out with her, and there’s absolutely no reason why she would be feeling like this right now, except Sarah knows herself and she knows exactly what’s going on. It’s not exactly rational, it’s a bit selfish, really, but she wants it to be just her and Nadira. That’s really all there is to it.

Sarah waves at Ashley as she turns to leave, still slightly exasperated with herself because she feels the way she feels.

She’s meeting Nadira at  _Giuliana’s_ , because Nadira has the day off. Nadira has a pretty wonky work schedule that changes from week to week, although Sarah knows that she’ll be working on Saturday night to cover the Panthers.

Next weekend, Sarah will be going to DC with the team, the following weekend, they’ll be in Boston. Going back to Boston is always a little strange. She joined the Bolts when she graduated, so it’s not like she spent a decade of her life with them or anything, but she liked her life in Boston and she misses it sometimes.

Cedar Mills is just… different. It’s home, and it’s safe and comfortable, but safe and comfortable is not something she thought she’d ever strive for.

Anyway. She’s here now and she’s happy. She has a team and a job and a nice place to live. She can visit her grandpa whenever she wants and she has all these friends now that aren’t even part of her team. She didn’t have that in Boston. She had Nate, and they hung out with Nate’s friends often enough, but Sarah never really got along with them all that well.

The only thing that annoys her about living in Cedar Mills is that she has to find more and more creative reasons for why she can’t join her parents for dinner. Sure, she has a lot of practices, she has games to play, she has a job, but she probably could find the time to have dinner with her mom and dad every now and then. If she tried.

She’s not gonna try, though.

Her dad took her out for dinner the other day and she didn’t say no to that, because she actually gets along with her dad. He never talks about Nate. Or about her love life. He doesn’t ask questions about her hypothetical future children. It’s nice.

When she gets to  _Giuliana’s_ , Nadira is already waiting for her, typing something on her phone, a basket with those amazing garlic bread balls already on the table.

“Hey,” Sarah says and sinks into the chair across from Nadira.

“Would you like one of these beauties?” Nadira asks and pushes the basket across the table.

“Absolutely.” Sarah takes one and then grabs the menu, even though she has the same pasta dish every time she comes here. She basically just glances at the lunch menu card and then puts it down in favor of looking at Nadira. She’s wearing a Cardinals hoodie and her hair is pulled back into a French braid and she’s so beautiful that Sarah feels like she can never look away again. She clears her throat. Anyway… “How are things?”

“Well,” Nadira says, “I’m pretty sure that Alex is totally losing it, but…”

“Because his mom is coming by in a couple of days?” Sarah asks. She’s heard Alex talk to Finn about it at the rink. Apparently it’s a big deal.

Nadira nods. “He’s not really saying anything about it, he just told me that she’ll be staying at our place, but I don’t think he knows for how long she’s going to stay and it makes him anxious.”

“Understandable,” Sarah mutters. Her mom visited her in Boston a few times and if she hadn’t known when her mom was going to leave, she would have gone nuts.

Nadira sighs.

“What?” Sarah asks.

“Well, I still live there,” Nadira says. “I wasn’t going to stick around for that long. I need to find a place to live.”

“Do you really?” Sarah asks. She has a feeling that Nadira actually likes living with Alex and Connor. She never complains about them. She seems happy there.

Nadira makes a face. “I know what you’re getting at. And it’s not like you’re wrong. But when I moved in, I told Alex that it was temporary. So I can’t stay. That’d be rude.” She flicks at her menu. “Right?”

“Maybe you should talk to him about it.”

Nadira takes another garlic bread ball, contemplating for a moment. “I guess. Anyway, first we have to survive the mom. I don’t really remember her. I’m sure I’ve met her before, you know, when we were kids, but…”

“I think she’s nice,” Sarah says. “I remember telling her that I was playing hockey as well and she thought it was really great. I wish I could remember what exactly she said… Well, I don’t think that Alex is having issues with her because she’s an awful person.”

Nadira hums and their conversation swiftly moves on. They both order and for a while all they talk about is hockey. It’s hard to avoid when the two of them are hanging out and it doesn’t really feel like they’re talking about work.

“Oh, by the way, did I tell you about Charlie…” Nadira says halfway through lunch. They’ve exchanged food and Nadira was busy talking shit about Brad.

“Your intern?”

“Not  _my_  intern, just, yeah,  _the_  intern… On Monday he asked me if I wanted to do some podcast thing with him and his friends?”

“A podcast?” Sarah asks. “Like… about hockey?”

“Yeah, about hockey.”

“Are you gonna do it?”

“I think so? I mean, Charlie is a nice kid and he sent me his friends’ names and one of them works for CTSN and the other one’s playing college hockey, so I have a faint hope that they’re not completely clueless.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “if they aren’t total weirdos, you should go for it.” Sarah wants more people to hear what Nadira has to say, because she’s smart and she understands team dynamics so well, even though she’s never played herself.

Nadira smiles brightly. “Yeah, who knows… maybe it’ll give me the career boost I need and Metro Sports will be begging me to come back to them.”

“You wanna go back to them?” Sarah asks.

“Not necessarily to them, but…” Nadira shrugs. “I don’t think I wanna stay here.”

“No?”

“I mean, working with Brad for the rest of my life?” Nadira says. “Doesn’t sound so appealing.”

Sarah gets that. She totally does. But the thought of Nadira going back to New York? Doesn’t sound so appealing either. Which is selfish. It’s just as selfish as her wanting Nadira all to herself for lunch. It’s completely ridiculous and Sarah just really needs to get a grip.

“Maybe Brad will retire soon and you’ll get to cover the Cardinals.”

“Brad is gonna let me cover the Cardinals when he  _dies_ ,” Nadira says. “Did you see their game against Vancouver last night?”

“I didn’t, I had practice, but I saw the score this morning,” Sarah replies. The Cardinals won, 7–1. Connor Walden scored a goal with an assist from Nick Rivera. No goal for Nick, though. You can tell that he’s starting to get frustrated, and the media, of course, won’t stop bugging him because of it. It’s only the beginning of December, so they’re not even halfway through the season, but Nick hasn’t scored in the last six games. He does lead the Cardinals in assists, though.

“Hey,” Nadira says, “you wanna come to my place on Sunday after I’m done recording the podcast? The boys are playing against the Lions.”

“Oh, uh…” Sarah does want to see that game, and she definitely doesn’t have any plans for Sunday, but what really convinces her is that it’ll be just her and Nadira again.

She has a problem.

A problem the size of, like, Mount Everest.

Sarah chooses to ignore that problem, says yes to watching the game with Nadira, and waves their waiter over to order some tiramisu.


	38. winter, Chapter 8.2

**winter**

 

**Chapter 8.2**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

The Cardinals are leaving Vancouver with two points and have their eyes on two more in Seattle tomorrow night #GoCardsGo

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Saw former Cardinal Zach Goldman at the arena earlier, had a quick chat with Coach Harrison, promised he wasn’t spying.

*

Connor is all smiles, even a day after their win in Vancouver. Honestly, the entire team is extremely cheerful, and for good reason. Nick likes seeing everyone so happy. It finally feels like they’re getting somewhere. They did lose the first game of their road trip in Calgary in overtime, but they’re doing a lot better than everyone was expecting.

Seattle is their third stop on this trip and they’re practicing at the Sailors’ arena this morning. The last game will be in LA. Nick is both dreading and looking forward to his return to LA. He did get along with most of the guys on the Lions and it’ll be nice to see them again, but it’s still the team that traded him away, the team that didn’t want him anymore, and so part of him would rather skip that game against the Lions.

But they’re in Seattle now. Game tomorrow. Then a day to travel. And then the game in LA on Sunday. It’s several days away. It shouldn’t be on his mind right now.

Down the ice, Connor, Dave and Caleb have ganged up on Jordie. Once they score, Connor detaches himself and skates towards the bench, slowing down only a little as he approaches Nick, bumping into him with a grin.

“Hey…” Nick gives him a shove. “Watch it.”

“Or what?” Connor asks and gives him a shove back. “Are you gonna fight me?” He laughs. “Have you  _ever_  fought anyone?”

Nick doesn’t fight. He’s not built for fighting. He pushes and shoves, but he’s not one to challenge someone else on purpose. He knows that he doesn’t stand a chance. So he just rolls his eyes and gives Connor a poke with his stick.

“Excuse you.”

Nick smirks, flips his stick over and taps Connors chin.

“High stick,” Connor shouts and dramatically drops onto the ice. “Four minutes. Blood. Blood everywhere.”

Mattie skates past them, cackling as he also gives Connor a poke. “Watcha doin’ down there, kid?”

“Ugh,” Connor says as he gets back up. “I can’t believe no one came to my defense.”

“Poor Waldo,” Nick says. He reaches up to pat Connor’s bucket. “I’ll let you pick the movie tonight.”

“You’re too generous.”

They’ve been sharing a room on the road since the start of the season. They don’t necessarily have to, but it works so well for them that Nick would never ask for his own room. Connor lets Nick have the bed by the window and he doesn’t snore and he somehow knows exactly when to leave Nick alone. He’s easy to be around and he always brings a box of cookies on roadies that he shares with Nick. Connor won’t tell him where he buys those cookies, but they’re amazing and one of these days Nick is going to tickle it out of him.

That evening, a bunch of the guys go out for dinner – Waldo, Santa, Ty, and Bunny and Jordie, although the two of them might as well be out for dinner on their own, because they’re constantly whispering to each other.

Mattie tags along with Caleb and Willie in tow. Those two are the youngest guys on the team, Caleb rotating in and out of the lineup, Willie as their new backup goalie. He got traded to the Cardinals during the off-season for a draft pick and he looks so confused all the time that Nick keeps catching himself looking for him to make sure he didn’t wander off or got lost somewhere.

As it gets later, Nick can see that Caleb is starting to shift in his seat. The Cardinals have a very similar way of taking care of the dinner bill as the Lions did. They’re probably going to end up throwing all their credit cards into a hat and one of them is going to pay for dinner. Which is why the kids are starting to look increasingly nervous.

Nick excuses himself and pretends that he’s going to the bathroom and sneaks off to pay the bill. Out of all the people at the table, he makes the most money, so it’s only fair if he takes care of dinner.

“You paid for dinner, didn’t you?” Connor whispers to him when he sits back down.

Nick shrugs. It’s not a big deal, although he’s pretty sure he can see little hearts in Willie’s eyes when it turns out that he won’t be the one paying for dinner. Poor rookies. Nick remembers feeling like that when he was out for dinner with the team during his first season.

“I feel like Nice Boy Nick Rivera isn’t really talked about too much,” Connor says when they’re back at the hotel, wandering down the hallway to their room. “It’s just, ‘Hey, he leads his team in points again’ here and, ‘Oh, look, he broke another record’ there.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” Nick mutters. He fishes the key card for their room out of his wallet. “Anyway, I don’t lead the team in points.”

“Assists. Whatever.” Connor follows him into their room and flops down on his bed. “Ugh, I ate too much.”

Nick kicks off his shoes and crawls into his own bed. He’s tired and he wouldn’t mind going straight to sleep. Connor is fiddling with his phone, a small frown on his face that deepens a moment later.

“Everything okay?” Nick asks. He’s not sure why his first thought is that there’s something wrong with Alex.

“Yeah.” Connor shakes his head. “I guess. Yeah.”

Nick keeps his eyes on Connor for a moment, because he has a feeling that there is definitely something going on.

Connor sighs and looks up. “My ex…”

“Oh,” Nick says. He suddenly regrets that he asked. He’s definitely not in the mood for an awkward conversation like that.

“She’s gonna be in New York for the holidays, she has family there, and it’s like… close enough, I guess. She said she might come to a game.”

Nick hums. His mom and dad are going to come up for Christmas, but they won’t stick around until New Year’s, because they’re going up to his aunt’s house in Boston. They all have tickets for when the Cardinals are in Boston on January 3rd.

“It must be complicated, though,” Connor mutters. “To get to Hartford from New York.” He looks up again. “Right?”

“I’m not sure,” Nick says. He remembers his parents taking him to New York when he was a kid, but it’s not like he had a chance to go there recently. Well, he did go with the team, but that’s not the same thing. He clears his throat. He didn’t want to get into this, but it seems that Connor actually wants to talk about it. “Do you even want to see her?”

“No,” Connor says. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I miss her, but she’s not staying, so I guess seeing her would just make things complicated.”

“Why?”

“Because…” Connor grabs a pillow and hides his face under it. “I don’t know, maybe when I see her, I’ll realize that I’m still in love with her. And I’ve been trying real hard not to be in love with her anymore, you know what I’m saying?”

Yeah. Nick knows what he’s saying. “Yeah, I get it.”

“Were you seeing someone in LA?” Connor asks. “Probably not, because then she would have come with you… Sorry, I’m being nosy.”

“No, it’s fine.” Nick blinks up at the ceiling. “I was seeing someone last season, but she was… We weren’t really right for each other. We went out on a couple of dates and she was nice, but that was really it.”

“Hm,” Connor says. “I went out with the guys the other week and I started talking to this girl at the bar and she gave me her number and I still haven’t called her. I have no idea why. She was great. I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not.”

“Okay, but…” Connor falls silent. He pulls the pillow off his face with a groan. “Not to be dramatic, but how do you even find someone who loves you? I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I mean, I did love Lucy and she loved me, but we didn’t want the same things in life.” He rolls over to frown at Nick. “Sorry. I’ll stop now.”

“Maybe you should call that girl,” Nick says.

He’s been handed a few phone numbers here and there ever since he moved back to Connecticut. He’s used to it. In LA, he had a few relationships, but they weren’t all that serious. He never really went looking for one night stands, but occasionally that was how a night out ended for him. Nick can’t say that he particularly enjoyed any of them.

What he told his teammates when they asked was that he just hasn’t found the right girl yet. That he’d keep looking.

“Maybe I should,” Connor says and picks up his phone. He stares at it for a moment, then he adds, “I’m gonna tell her not to come. Yeah. That’s what I’m gonna tell her.”


	39. winter, Chapter 8.3

**winter**

 

**Chapter 8.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I LOVE THE CARDINALS

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

@ hockey gods let nick rivera score tonight

*

“YOU GO, NICK,” Nadira shouts and almost upends their bowl of popcorn.

Sarah laughs and grabs the popcorn before it ends up all over the floor. They’re watching the Cardinals’ game against the Lions. It’s technically an afternoon game, but for them it’s dinner time. There’s an assortment of mozzarella sticks and pizza rolls on the table, together with the popcorn and a plate with cookies that Alex made for them before he left for the airport. He’s picking up his mom and he seemed a little… agitated when he left.

Nick, on TV, almost scores, but the puck gets covered and Nick ends up getting run into the boards behind the net by Paulson. There’s some pushing and shoving, then Connor gets involved and grabs Paulson by his jersey to get him away from Nick.

“Boys,” Sarah mutters.

Okay. In all honesty? Sometimes she gets riled up during a game and would just love to punch someone in the face. And it’s an absolute tragedy that she can’t. Well, she  _could_. Anyway.

“Fuckin’ kill him, Waldo,” Nadira says, nodding her head in approval as Connor lays one on Paulson.

“The Cardinals are up by one halfway through the second,” one of the announcers says, “and things are getting a little heated here in LA.”

“Didn’t look like this was where we were headed during warmups, Bobby,” the second announcer chimes in. “Here’s some footage from earlier, that’s Cody Jackson, catching up with his former captain. Jackson came to LA in the Rivera trade and he’s been fantastic for them, but… well, the Lions signed Frederickson in the off-season to replace Rivera, but they’re still trying to find their groove.”

Nadira snorts. “Trying to find their groove,” she says. “Yeah, right. They’re a train wreck.”

As if to prove Nadira’s point, Josh Roy scores on a breakaway no more than ten seconds later.

“Train wreck,” Nadira says again.

“Man, I hope Nick scores,” Sarah mutters and pulls the bowl of popcorn into her lap. If she was in a position to do any scoring, the first thing she would have wanted to do during her first game against Boston was to score against them. She ended up  _winning_  her first game against them, though, and that was definitely good enough for her.

“Rivera hasn’t been scoring too much for the Cardinals,” the announcer called Bobby says.

“He does lead them in assists, though,” Nadira says almost at the same time as the other announcer.

Nick gets yet another assist at the beginning of the third, and his second assist of the game on the power play. On the bench, he almost smiles a little. As they approach the end of the game, Connor actually passes the puck to Nick for the empty netter, but the puck never makes it all the way down the ice.

“I can’t believe he doesn’t get to score against them,” Nadira says. “This is bullshit.”

“He’ll get another chance later this season.”

Nadira sighs. “At least he got two assists.” She laughs. “Aw, look at Bunny and Jordie.”

“Jordie was great,” Sarah says. She’d actually love to meet him. Jordan Grenier is one of the best goalies in the league right now and he’s so underrated that it hurts.

“I love him. I should get his jersey.”

Sarah laughs. “How many jerseys do you have?”

“Well,” Nadira says, flicking some lint of her knee, her smile sheepish, “I have several. I also have  _your_  jersey.”

“You do?” Sarah asks. She had no idea. She does know that her jersey is a popular one, but she’s never seen Nadira wear it.

“Yeah, but when I cover your games, it’s my  _job_ , so I can’t really wear a jersey.” Nadira shakes her head. “I should come to an away game at some point. Honestly, it sucks so much that we don’t have the budget to cover your away games. But when I go to one, I’ll wear your jersey. And then I’ll ask you to sign it and I’ll also ask you for a selfie.”

“You can have as many as you want,” Sarah says. Did that sound weird?

Nadira is still smiling at her, so it probably wasn’t too weird. It just sounded weird to her, because she’s paying too much attention to the things she says to Nadira.

Sarah coughs to cover up the fact that she’s having yet another existential crisis. “Where’s Alex? I thought he was just going to the airport?”

“Oh, I think he was gonna take his mom out for dinner,” Nadira says. “Ugh, I feel like I shouldn’t be around while she’s here, I don’t know, it’s her house, isn’t it? And I’m not even paying rent.”

“I don’t think she’s gonna mind that you live here,” Sarah replies. “It’s practically Alex’s house anyway.”

Nadira hums. “I should still find my own place.”

“Or you could ask Alex if you can stay.”

“Shh,” Nadira shakes her head, “we’re not talking about that.”

Byron jumps up about five minutes later and scurries out the door, which means that someone just got home and since he’s not barking, it’s definitely a car he knows.

Nadira looks around, making a face.

They made a huge mess. And since the front door literally just opened, they don’t have too much time to make that mess disappear.

“Aw, shit,” Nadira says, just when the door opens and Alex’s mom comes waltzing into the living room. She’s wearing a purple dress and high heels that Nessie would probably love to own and she’s totally one of the most beautiful women on the planet and Sarah definitely wants to be her when she grows up.

“Hey, girls,” she says and waves at them. “I’m Alex’s mom, I just wanted to say hello real quick. Call me Angelica.”

“Nice to meet you,” Nadira says. She clears her throat. “Sorry about the mess.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I know what a girls’ night looks like,” Angelica says. “So, I know that you’re Sarah,” she goes on, “so you must be Nadira.”

Nadira nods, waving a little awkwardly.

Angelica sits down on the couch and takes a cookie. “It’s so lovely to meet the two of you, although, Sarah, I do remember you from when you and Alex were still on the same peewee team.”

“Oh, right,” Sarah says. “That was a long time ago.”

“Not that long. And now you play for the Panthers, that’s great,” Angelica says. She’s definitely done her homework.

She just jumps right in, asks Sarah questions about the team, the management, how they’re doing money-wise, what it would take for them to expand, asking Nadira about her job and suggesting she should put some thought into how she could get Brad fired when she mentions that she never gets to cover any Cardinals games.

“Although I’m sure Sarah’s games are also fantastic.” Angelica hesitates, then she turns to Sarah and asks, “Has Alex been to one of your games?”

“Not yet,” Sarah says.

Angelica’s smile falters for a moment.

“Well, he’s at the rink a lot on weekends,” Nadira chimes in. “I’ll drag him along at some point.”

Angelica sighs softly. “I understand why he’s not too keen on going, don’t get me wrong, but his dad is in the area a few times during the season and he never wants to see him. It’s upsetting for Zach.”

“Mom, where are– Oh, hey.” Alex is hovering in the doorway. “You’ve met Sarah and Nadi.”

“I have.”

“Cool.” Alex chews on his bottom lip. “Yeah, so, I put your suitcase in the downstairs guest room, I figured that would work best for you, because it has a bathroom.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. Well, girls, I’m sure you both have work tomorrow, but I’ll see you around soon.”

Alex waits until his mom has left the living room, then he sinks into the armchair by the fireplace that no one ever uses. “Kill me now.” He holds out his hand and snaps his fingers. “Hey, buddy, come here.”

Byron obediently pads over to him and puts his head in Alex’s lap.

“So, you’ve met my mom,” Alex says.

“Yeah, she’s…” Sarah doesn’t really know what to say. Alex’s mom has this aura of authority, but she also seems a little chaotic somehow.

“She overshares,” Nadira says.

Alex groans. “What did she say about me in the, what, five seconds I wasn’t around?”

“Nothing,” Nadira replies, “just… you know. What I meant is that she’s very talkative.”

“She is,” Alex says. He scratches Byron’s ears and fishes his phone out of his hoodie pocket. “Is it too early to go to bed? It is. Fine. Guess I’ll find something to do on Wednesday, so I don’t have to be home all day.”

“Alex…”

“It’s okay, I’ll stop being mean now,” Alex says and gets up. “Sorry, you guys enjoy your evening.” And with that he slips out of the room.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Sarah asks. She has some experience with avoiding her mother. Not that she wants to give Alex tips or anything, but she gets it.

“I hope so,” Nadira mumbles. She nudges Sarah’s foot and Sarah has to do her very best not to get heart palpitations because of it. “You wanna watch a movie?”

“Do  _you_  want to watch a movie?”

“Why?”

“Because there are several other games on tonight and a few of them just started, so I figured you’d rather watch one of those.”

“You don’t mind?” Nadira asks.

Sarah shrugs. “Why would I mind?”

“Right. You like hockey.” Nadira picks up the remote. “Man, I love you.”

Sarah takes a cookie and tries not to read anything into that.

*

They arrive in Hartford in the morning after their game against the Lions. No practice today. They have the day off, then it’s back to work tomorrow. Game in Hartford on Wednesday. Another one on Friday. Game in New York on Saturday. Connor wants to go to bed immediately.

“Hey,” Nick says as they get off the plane. “You wanna come over for dinner tonight?”

“Yeah, sure, I– Wait.” Connor is too tired for decision-making and his brain is only now catching up to what day of the week it is. “Alex’s mom arrived yesterday and I think he might end up needing moral support.”

“Alex’s mom is in town?”

“Yeah.” Connor rubs his eyes. He was asleep on the plane and, quite frankly, he would have loved to keep sleeping. Stay on the plane forever. He doesn’t care. “You know her? I think I talked to her, like, twice when I was a kid.”

“Not really. I just know that Alex’s family isn’t… easy.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean, I’m sure his mom is really nice,” Nick says. “I’ve met his dad before and he doesn’t always look as grumpy as he does on the bench. Still, like… Alex’s dad had this vision for him. I remember when we were younger and Alex’s dad was at the rink, it was… I don’t know. I hated it when he was there. He was harsh, even when Alex did everything right.”

Connor nods. He remembers that, too. “Yeah, so… I don’t know, he didn’t seem too excited about his mom coming by, so I feel like I should stick around. Not that I can do anything, but I’d feel bad if I didn’t.”

“No, I get it,” Nick says.

“Why don’t you come over for dinner? I’m not gonna cook, but we can order something.”

“Yeah, Alex definitely doesn’t want me  _and_  his mom around.” Nick unlocks his car and opens the trunk for both of them. “Anyway, we can hang out some other time.”

When they’re in the car, Connor briefly considers going to sleep, but Nick is probably exhausted too, so Connor decides to keep talking and since his sleep-deprived brain is an idiot, he says, “What happened with you and Alex?” He rolls his eyes at himself. “Sorry. That was a really not very polite thing to ask. And that didn’t sound like an actual sentence. I need to take a nap when I get home.”

“I did something stupid,” Nick says quietly. “And I never really apologized for it.”

Connor clears his throat. “Why didn’t you apologize?”

“I was sixteen and… I was embarrassed and scared and I know that I should have apologized a long time ago, but I will. Soon. I’m just sort of working up to it.”

That doesn’t really explain anything, but at the same time it explains a lot, because Alex is the kind of person who will hold a grudge until he dies and Nick does not exactly excel at talking about his feelings and that clearly also includes apologies. Connor is honestly surprised that Nick told him anything at all. “Thanks for, uh, telling me.”

Nick glances over at him and for a moment Connor thinks that he’s going to say something else, but then he turns his head, eyes back on the road, and that’s it for their conversation.

“You were right, by the way,” Nick says a while later.

“Huh?” Okay, yeah, Connor definitely needs a good, long nap. His thoughts are several miles ahead of him. They’re with his bed.

“The game yesterday,” Nick says. “You were right about what you said about winning against the team that traded you. It does feel a little better than all the other wins.”

Connor grins. “Yeah. It’s nice.”


	40. winter, Chapter 8.4

**winter**

 

**Chapter 8.4**

 

*

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Several days into December, Michael Conrad has shaved off his Movember mustache: “My sister threatened to break into my house with a razor.”

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Per Coach Harrison: Grenier in net against Tigers tonight, Holmes in the lineup, Rogers is day-to-day with a lower body injury

*

“I love what you’ve done with the place.”

Alex only smiles and goes back to sorting through the drawers in the front office.

Technically, Ashley is supposed to be in the front office right now, but Alex arrived this morning with his mom in tow, so everything’s a little different. It’s Monday morning, so people are trickling in very slowly for the public skate. Ashley is teaching an adult group class at eleven and then a private lesson right after that one.

“That’s a beautiful drawing,” Angelica says, nodding at the big board across from the front office.

It’s almost completely covered in drawings, which means that Alex will soon snap a picture of it and then wipe it. When they first got the board, no two weeks after Alex took over the rink, one of the girls who was overseeing their public skates on the weekend drew a figure skater on the board and it looked so amazing that Ashley honestly couldn’t believe that Alex would even think about wiping the board.

“It’s the point of the board, though,” Alex said as he got a bucket and a sponge. “Everything that ends up on there is temporary. I’ll take a picture, though.”

There’s a photo album on the little table next to the front desk that’s covered in stacks of flyers and sign-up forms and the box with the chalk. There’s been some great stuff on that board and since Sarah started working here, a new drawing ends up on the board every time she comes in for a shift.

This week, she’s drawn the Panthers’ starting line – Perez, Conrad, Wong – and added,  _Join the Hartford Panthers at their annual Holiday Skating Party_. She brought a bunch of flyers, too, and she’s invited pretty much everyone who works at the rink.

“Sarah drew that,” Ashley says when Alex doesn’t reply.

Angelica nods. “Sarah Albright… such a talented girl. And not just on the ice, it seems.” She turns around to face Ashley. “How have you been? I’ve heard about the wedding, of course. Congratulations!”

“Yeah, thank you so much for letting us borrow your backyard.”

“Oh, absolutely. It’s Alex’s call anyway, it’s his backyard as far as I’m concerned.”

Alex actually looks surprised for a moment, but his expression quickly goes back to some strange mixture of bored and tortured.

“Lovely, Alex, really,” Angelica says, “I’m glad you’re taking such good care of this place.”

Alex hums noncommittally and starts fiddling with the flyers.

“Well, you must have work to do and I have a brunch date to get to.” Angelica smiles at Ashley. “Maybe I’ll come by to actually skate one of these days.” She turns to Alex and adds, “I used to skate with your dad every now and then. And with you, but you probably don’t remember much of that.”

Alex stares down at his shoes when he says, “No, I do remember.” He clears his throat. “Anyway, I have to make a couple of phone calls.”

“Of course,” Angelica says and squeezes Alex’s arm. “I’ll see you later, darling.”

“Sure,” Alex mumbles, glaring until his mom is out the door.

Ashley sort of likes Alex’s mom. She’s never talked to her much, but she’s always thought of her as a pleasant person. As opposed to Alex’s dad, who always seemed so intense and hellbent on making Alex a better player that Ashley tried to avoid him whenever she could. Not that he was around that often. Anyway, back then Ashley had her own career to worry about.

She misses that. And she’s not sure why it hits her just now that she’s not really working towards anything anymore. There were always those competitions, the Olympics, she had goals, big dreams, and now she’s just… living her life. And maybe that’s okay, maybe she doesn’t need any big dreams, because hers already came true – she has that medal at home. Still. It bugs her a little that her only goal right now is to get married to Jamie without her strangling anyone who tries to get involved in her wedding planning.

Alex leans against the wall with a sigh.

“That bad?” Ashley asks.

“She’s just so…” Alex shakes his head. “She keeps trying to talk to me about my dad and it’s exhausting. She just doesn’t get it. And she gets involved in everything… last night she went looking for the menorah and she’s been talking about getting decorations. Well, I sort of told Waldo that he could have a tree if he wanted one, he’s so excited about the holidays, so at least he’ll be happy.”

“What’s so bad about a tree anyway? Or the menorah? Like, okay, as someone who hasn’t been to church in about a million years, I get it, but those are nice traditions.”

“Sure, it’s nice, but with how excited she is about this, I have a feeling that she won’t be leaving any time soon. Like, she might actually stay until Hanukkah. It starts in a week.”

“You’re here most of the time anyway,” Ashley says.

Alex only hums in reply, his eyes on their event calendar. “Oh, by the way, I told Sarah that she can have the outdoor rink after her shift on Thursday, just so you know. She might bring over some friends or something.”

Ashley raises her eyebrows at Alex. “Do we get special employee access to the outdoor rink?” Honestly, she loves the outdoor rink and it’s usually closed after eight on weekdays, so she wouldn’t mind having it all to herself after work.  

“Do you want special access?”

Ashley chews on her bottom lip. Yeah. She does.

“I don’t mind as long as you fix up the ice afterwards.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

He’s way too good to her. Private ice time is nothing she can afford these days. Or, well, she could, but it doesn’t make much sense for her to book an entire rink. Sometimes she’ll get here early in the morning and she’ll skate for a little while, Alex doesn’t mind, but it’s an entirely different thing to have a rink to herself for as long as she wants it.

Alex shrugs and points down the hall. “I actually do have to make a couple of phone calls. And I have to find something to do on Wednesday, because I sure as hell won’t spend all day at home with my mom.”

Ashley only shakes her head at him as he walks away. She knows that Alex will go to great lengths to avoid his parents, so she wouldn’t be surprised if he embarks on a spontaneous trip to Niagara Falls or something like that.

*

“Sweetheart, there you are.”

Alex freezes in the doorway, while Byron prances over to his mom to have his head scratched. “Hey, Mom.”

“Did you take Byron out for a walk?”

“Yeah, I took him to the dog park, I don’t really have time to do that all that often.”

“Sounds lovely.”

“Yeah, so–”

“I was thinking we could go out for dinner tonight. Catch up a little. Talk about–”

“Mom,” Alex says. He does not want to talk about his life, or his future, or his relationship status. Which are all things that would most definitely come up during that conversation.

“Alex,” his mom says. “I promise I won’t talk about your dad.”

Alex purses his lips.

“He’s not a bad person, sweetheart. He just wants your best and he wants you to have the life you want.”

“Well, this  _is_  the life I want,” Alex says. “So why does he seem so disappointed every time I talk to him?”

“He just knows that you would make a wonderful coach. You always loved hockey so much–”

“I still love hockey,” Alex says. He hates this conversation. They’ve had it so many times that he’s lost count. His dad is disappointed because he won’t do whatever he wants Alex to do, and deep down his mom is disappointed too, because he could be doing more than just work at the rink. At least she’s trying to be supportive.

“Honey–”

“Anyway, I have plans tonight, so can we postpone dinner?”

Truth be told, he doesn’t have plans tonight. Of course he doesn’t. But dinner with his mom is just about the last thing he wants to do tonight, even if his mom promises that she won’t even bring up his dad. Because of course she’ll bring up his dad. There’s no way that she won’t. They can have dinner together, but he’d love to invite Connor and maybe Nadira along as well. Nadira said she had plans after work tonight, so she won’t even come home, and Connor has a game. He’s at morning skate right now.

“You have plans?” his mom asks.

Okay. He needs a plan. Right now. “Yeah, well, there’s some stuff I need to check up on at the rink.” But it’s his day off and even if he goes to the rink, there’s no way he can find an excuse to stay there all day. He honestly wishes Connor didn’t have that game tonight. Actually. That game. “And Connor’s playing tonight and I was gonna go.” And now he has to hope that his mom won’t ask if she can come to the game with him.

“Oh,” his mom says, “you’re going to the game?”

“Yeah. Haven’t been to one in a while.” That’s the understatement of the year right there. He doesn’t actually have to go. He’ll just stay out for a while. Maybe he’ll go watch a movie.

It works, though. His mom leaves him alone after that and he goes to the rink, where Ashley looks upon him with her patented judgy eyes. Finn thinks the whole thing is hilarious, but walks away shaking his head when Alex asks him if he wants to hang out later.

He leaves the rink in the late afternoon and gets on the highway to go grab dinner somewhere and watch a movie. The thing is… he’s already going towards Hartford. It’s a Wednesday evening. The Cardinals game is probably not sold out. He could go. Just for the hell of it. It’d be just him. No eyes on him to see if he’s doing okay, no conversations that carefully skirt around the topic of him almost becoming one of those guys down on the ice.

Alex changes his mind about it approximately fifty more times, but when he passes the exit for his favorite burger place, he knows where he’s going. He’s headed for A&P.

He makes it into the line out front the arena without really thinking about what he’s doing here, a ticket in hand that he bought, also without really thinking about it. When he handed over his credit card, the guy who swiped it for him looked down at it for an uncomfortably long moment. It wasn’t that he was trying to memorize Alex’s credit card number, or at least Alex is 98% sure about that, but it was the name on it that must have caught his eye.

Working at this arena, people recognize the name Goldman. The guy gave him a look as he handed the card back to Alex, blinking at him, the gears clearly turning in his head. Alex does look a lot like his dad and he is grateful that the guy didn’t end up asking him if he’s related to Zach Goldman.

As he goes into the arena, people in Cardinals gear flocking around him, he stops dead, actually considering if he should walk right back out again. Maybe it’s too much. Maybe he’ll hate it. Maybe he’ll hate himself for coming.  _Nope_. He’s here, he’s doing this.

He stops next to the team store and looks at the jerseys that are on display – Roy, Rivera, Grenier. It’s all the popular guys. One of the sales assistants comes over to him, because apparently he was staring a little too hard at the Rivera jerseys in front of him. “Can I help you with anything?”

Alex almost says,  _No, thanks_ , and walks away. He has about a dozen Cardinals jerseys at home, but most of them are kid-sized, from way back when his dad was still on the team and he’d stand behind the glass with his mom and she’d lift him up so he could wave at his dad. One of his dad’s teammates, Alan Harper, is still working with the Cardinals as a rinkside reporter. He was the Cardinals’ starting goalie back then and when Alex got to come to practice, Harpy would let Alex try to score on him. He has a Harper jersey at home as well and he’s almost a little mad at himself that he didn’t dig that one up before he came here.

“Do you happen to have any Walden jerseys?” Alex asks.

“We do keep jerseys of all players in stock, but those have been really popular lately, so let me check for you.”

The sales assistant actually does manage to find him a Walden jersey – “One of the last ones” – and Alex buys it, because if there’s one jersey he wants to wear at this game, it’s Waldo’s.

He pulls it on and then heads down to the ice for warm-ups. He’s not going to try to get Connor’s attention or anything, but as a kid watching warm-ups were an essential part of going to a game for him, and if Connor sees him, so be it. It’s not like he’s going to hide that he was here or anything.

A good number of people have already gathered around the glass, so he settles for a spot in the second row, behind a mom and a tiny kid in a Cardinals jersey. When the kid spots him, she smiles at him. She even has Cardinals ponytail holders. Alex waves at her and she hides her face, only to look back up a second later to grin at him.

The mom turns around and now Alex can see that the kid is wearing a Rivera jersey. “Making friends everywhere she goes,” the mom says.

Again, the kid turns to look at Alex and grins.

“You like Nick Rivera, huh?” Alex asks.

“She does,” the mom confirms. “Don’t you, Ida?”

The kid, Ida, nods and reaches over her mom’s shoulder to pat the glass.

Alex glances at the clock. “They’ll come out pretty soon.”

The mom turns back around, mumbling to the kid, pointing at the bench and the tunnel where the players come out. The rows behind Alex also start to fill up as the beginning of warm-ups approaches. A bunch of kids and some older fans have brought posters, asking for pucks or declaring their love for certain players. A kid on the other side has a,  _Hey, Nick Rivera, if you throw me a puck, my dad will get me a dog_ , sign.

That kid is definitely getting a puck.

When the players come out, a roar goes through the crowd. The lights come on just when the players hit the ice. Grenier comes first, then the rest of the guys follow. Waldo comes out with a huge grin on his face; Nick is the second to last to hit the ice, his eyes on the signs as he makes his way around the rink, the look on his face murderous.

That’s the kind of look you get on your face when you haven’t scored in a while.

The murder eyes vanish for a moment when he skates past the little kid that’s in front of Alex. He taps the glass as he goes by and for a split-second Alex thinks that Nick might have not seen him, but then Nick does a double-take, blinks at Alex, nods at him, and then skates off.

Alex lets out a deep breath.

*

“Alex is here.”

“Alex is…” Connor’s eyes go wide. “He’s here? At the game?”

Nick kneels down next to him to stretch. “Yep. He’s right behind Anna and Ida.” He went over there to say hello to Ida, because Lee mentioned in the locker room that she’d insisted on wearing Nick’s jersey today.

“I don’t even remember the last time she wore her Hellström jersey,” Lee said. “At this point I’m not even sure if she has one.”

“Hey, if you let me borrow one of your jerseys, I’ll put it on Peanut,” Santa said. “Bee will be delighted.”

Nick is expecting to see pictures of Santa’s black lab in a Hellström jersey on Instagram tomorrow.

“I can’t believe he’s actually here,” Connor says, his eyes on the crowd behind the glass. “He’s been avoiding this… Like, I told him I could get him tickets whenever he wanted to come to a game, but he didn’t even mention that he was thinking about coming today.”

“Well…”

“Hm?”

“You told me that his mom’s in town,” Nick says. He knows Alex. He knows that Alex would do just about anything to avoid any sort of conflict with his parents. Tale as old as time.

Connor snorts. “Man.” He grabs a puck as he gets up and skates over to the glass on the other side. He waves at Ida and then taps against the glass for Alex, holds up the puck in the universal  _this one’s for you_  way and throws it to him.

Alex catches it with the smile of someone who’s trying very hard  _not_  to smile, because the world would certainly end if someone could tell that he’s having a good time.

He waits until Connor has skated off to shoot a puck at Jordie, then he holds the puck out to little Ida Hellström. Alex probably has absolutely no idea that that kid can have a puck whenever she wants one. She can have all the pictures with her dad’s teammates and sticks and jerseys in the world.

Ida grabs the puck with a gleeful smile and Anna turns around to say something to Alex. He waves her off and grins at Ida, who’s clutching the puck like it’s the best thing anyone’s ever handed her.

As the guys start leaving the ice, Nick picks up his three pucks.

He tosses the first one to a girl whose sign says that her dad will get her a dog if she gets a puck. He’s happy to help with that. The next one he throws to a little boy who’s maybe four or five years old and has done his utmost to put Nick’s name on a sign, the letters wonky, the Rivera not quite fitting. It’s just his name followed by approximately a billion exclamation points. Nick loves it.

The third puck is for Alex. It was for Alex even before Connor threw him one and Alex gave it away. Ida and Anna are gone now, but Alex is still there. He presses his lips together like he’s trying even harder than before not to smile when he sees Nick approach.

“Hey, Alex,” Nick says and nods at him. Alex probably can’t hear him through the glass, but he’ll know that Nick is talking to him.

Nick doesn’t manage to get the puck over the glass on the first try, which hasn’t happened in months. Alex laughs, but catches it smoothly when Nick tries again. He puts it in his pocket  and gives Nick a look that pretty much says,  _Happy now?_

Nick nods and skates away.

As he heads off the ice, Yoshi follows him. “Friend of yours?” he asks.

“We used to play together,” Nick says. He doesn’t mention that Alex is Zach Goldman’s son. He has a feeling that Alex wouldn’t like it.

“Huh,” Yoshi says. “He sort of looked familiar.”

Nick doesn’t comment on that and walks on down the tunnel.

The Tigers are in town for tonight’s game and they had a bit of a rough start this season, losing their first three games, only to win one and go on yet another losing streak, but they won their last two games – one was a shutout, the other one a 6-2 win – so the Cardinals are not expecting this game to be an easy one.

Two minutes into the game, the Tigers score. Ten minutes later, Jordie ends up getting pushed into the net and is slow to get up after. Waldo and Santa help him off the ice and Willie has to go in.

Willie turned 21 this summer. He got traded a day before his birthday. He’s never played a full season in the league, but except for that one truly horrible game where he got pulled, he’s been doing a good job for them. Still, this doesn’t exactly make things easier for them.

They manage to tie it before the first intermission, but no one’s too happy about how this game is going.

“Willie,” Yoshi says before they head back out onto the ice, “shut the door. No goals, okay?”

“No goals,” Willie says.

“You,” Yoshi goes on and points at Nick. “Goals.”

He’s tried that one before, and, honestly, it’s not like Nick isn’t trying hard enough to score goals. He’s contributed on many since he scored his last one, but it’s about damn time for him to score one now.

“A goal, Rivs,” Connor whispers to him as they head back out. “Score a goal.”

“You score a goal,” Nick says.  

“Fine, maybe I will.”

The second period starts with Cooper sliding into the boards after he collides with one of the Tigers’ forwards. He gets off the ice by himself, but he goes straight back to the locker room. They have two good chances after that, but nothing will go in for them.

Not until Connor ends up with the puck on his stick right after a faceoff and he just lets it fly. It sails straight past Jakobsen’s catching glove, and for a moment Connor looks like he can’t quite believe that it actually went in. Nick is watching from the bench as Santa practically jumps into Connors arms before they’re joined by Yoshi, Mike and Ricky.

Nick has heard a couple of people say that Connor is a completely different player on the Cardinals and they’re not wrong. Connor was never much of a goal scorer, a lot of defensemen aren’t, but this season everything’s different. Nick is pretty sure that Connor’s already reached a career high this season and it’s only December.

Mattie scores next with an assist from Willie – his first as far as Nick knows – and when they head into the second intermission, everyone’s in a much better mood, despite the fact that Cooper and Grenier won’t be returning today.

It’s a strange game. Usually, a game where they lose two guys doesn’t turn out to be a good one, but this one just keeps getting better for them.

Yoshi scores right at the beginning of the third with Mike’s stick because he lost his own. They score the next one one shorthanded. And because they’re still not done yet, they score another one with 54 seconds left on the clock. It’s not an empty netter. It is, in many ways, an accident.

Nick just shoots. It goes off the bar, because of course it does, but instead of flying away from the net, it bounces off Jakobsen’s back and into the net.

The goal horn sounds and the only thought on Nick’s mind is,  _Finally, finally, finally_.

“Holy SHIT,” Lee shouts as he skates over to Nick to wrap him into a hug.

_Finally_.

It wasn’t a pretty goal, it wasn’t skillful, he just threw the puck on net, hoping for a rebound, but it’s a goal and he scored it, and that’s all that matters to him right now. He skates over to the bench and everyone’s smiling as he skates past them, bumping fists with everyone.

Nick sits down on the bench and Connor reaches over to pat his head, like he does after every goal. It’s been a while. “Finally,” Connor shouts.

Yeah.  _Finally_.


	41. winter, Chapter 8.5

**winter**

 

**Chapter 8.5**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

what a great evening to go skating and fall on your ass…. no actually @sassalbright you’re a great teacher, 10/10, would recommend

*

“I swear I picked the least shitty rental skates for you,” Sarah says as she leads Nadira over to the rink.

The last public skate of the day in the outdoor rink ended about twenty minutes ago and the ice is already nice and smooth when Sarah unlocks the gate. There are no nets, but it’s not like they’ll be playing hockey.

“I appreciate it,” Nadira says. “I haven’t gone skating in a really long time and I need all the help I can get.”

“No worries, I usually have different skates, too, so…”

“Right, you and your extra special goalie skates.”

Sarah holds the gate open for Nadira and she slips past the fence with a soft giggle.

“I know that we’re allowed to be here,” Nadira whispers, “because you literally have the keys, but it sort of feels like we’re breaking in.”

Sarah snorts.

It’s actually really nice of Alex to let them use the outdoor rink. He could charge them for it, not that she could afford it, but Alex just said that it’s one of the perks of working here.

Sarah wonders if he lets Nick use the rink for free, too. He’s here tonight, in one of the inside rinks. She passed him in the hallway earlier and he shot her a small smile before he headed down the stairs to the locker rooms with his equipment bag. Sarah isn’t sure what he’s doing here – he had a game last night, practice this morning, and has another game tomorrow. Sarah knows, because Bee was grumbling about the Cardinals’ schedule at practice yesterday. Her boyfriend’s been playing with Connor all season.

“You’re literally gonna have to hold my hand,” Nadira says as she takes off her sneakers and starts lacing up one of the rental skates.

“You’ll be fine,” Sarah says. Not that she’d mind holding Nadira’s hand. In fact, the mere thought of holding Nadira’s hand makes her entire face feel like it’s on fire, so no objection there. “But I’ll help you out. Because I’m nice like that.”

“Oh, Sass, what would I do without you?”

“Fall on your ass, probably.”

Nadira grabs the other skate. “You have no faith in me. But that’s okay. I  _would_  fall on my ass.”

Sarah laughs and quickly takes care of her own skates. It’s weird, putting on skates but no gear. Maybe she’s gonna be the one to fall on her ass as soon as they get on the ice.

She opens the door for Nadira, who’s wearing one of her Cardinals jerseys for the occasion.

“Okay, look at me, I’m going…” Nadira slowly glides towards center ice. “I’m going, I’m going…”

“What are you gonna do once you stop going?” Sarah asks and follows her swiftly.

“Not fair, slow down.”

Sarah laughs and stops to give Nadira a chance to catch up, but Nadira’s initial push off the boards only takes her so far.

“Okay, that’s it,” Nadira says and holds out her hand. “Help.”

Sarah is pretty sure that Nadira would do just fine if she tried. She’s skated before, so she’ll get back into it soon enough. But maybe– Okay. This is a ridiculous thing to think, but what if Nadira wants to hold her hand, too? No. Well. Maybe. Who knows.

When Sarah suggested this to Nadira, she just said something like,  _Hey, you wanna go skating with me? Alex said I could have the outdoor rink_. She didn’t say that it was a date or anything. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it to be a date, though. She really should have mentioned that she wanted this to be a date, because now it’s not, it’s just two friends skating. And holding hands. For very platonic reasons.

“So,” Nadira says, “do you wanna hear the hot gossip?”

“Ohh, what’s the hot gossip?”

“My mother thinks I’m lonely,” Nadira says. “She called me last night and invited me over for dinner this weekend and I said yes to that, because I like my parents most of the time, and I think I’ve had enough time to relax since I moved out, but then my mom was like, ‘Oh, you don’t have plans? Do you have friends? Nadira, it’s not good if all you do is stay home and watch hockey. You need to go out. How are you ever going to meet someone if you never go out?’ And then I sort of zoned out while she was talking about how I’ll be alone forever.”

“Yikes,” Sarah replies.

“I know, right?” Nadira sighs. “I mean, she has a point. When I go out, I got to the bar with you guys. Not sure if I’ll meet the love of my life in Cedar Mills.”

Okay, yeah, Nadira just wants to hold her hand so she won’t fall on her ass. No ulterior motives there. Of course not. Sarah clears her throat. “Who knows.”

“I know that it’s just because she cares and wants me to be happy and, like, I appreciate that she’s willing to talk about it at all, because I have relatives who literally won’t talk to me because,  _oh no, she’s a lesbian_ , but you know… Anyway, I’m gonna quit complaining now, because I have more hot gossip.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Alex went to the Cardinals game last night.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Because he was trying to avoid his mom.”

“That’s… not surprising.”

“I love Alex’s mom, she’s so nice. She told me so many funny stories about Alex, like, about when he was a kid… He’d be mortified if I knew that she told me all that stuff about him. And she’s taking us all out for dinner on Sunday.”

“Aw, that is really nice of her.” Sarah huffs. “Alex didn’t even mention that he went to the game.”

“I think that was the point,” Nadira says. “He– Whoaaa.”

Sarah tries to grab Nadira by the elbow before she falls over, but she ends up going down with her. Sarah has fallen over on the ice before, usually she wears a great deal more padding, though.

“Ouch.”

“I’m so sorry,” Nadira says. She tries to get back up and slips again. “Shit.”

“Ice is slippery.” Sarah stands up and holds out her hands to help Nadira.

Nadira laughs. She’s back on her feet a moment later, only she got up with a little too much enthusiasm and ends up bumping into Sarah’s chin with the top of her head. “ _Fuck_ , I’m sorry.” She reaches out to frame Sarah’s face with gloved hands. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Sarah chokes out. She pats Nadira’s hat. “You’re padded.”

Nadira grins.

She’s so pretty. Sarah wants to tell her how pretty she is. You can tell a friend that she’s pretty and it doesn’t have to be weird, right? “I like your hat.” Well, it’s not quite what she wanted to say, but that’s good enough.

“Thank you,” Nadira says. “Waldo made it for me.”

“It’s nice. The colors are nice.”

“Cardinals colors. I’m sure he’d make you one if you asked. In Panthers colors even.”

“Oh, uh, I might,” Sarah says. Nadira is still smiling at her. She’ll just try again. “You–”

“Did you see that?” Nadira wipes at her cheek and looks up a the dark night sky. “I think it’s snowing.”

Sarah looks up too and a snowflake lands on her forehead. “It is.”

“Awesome,” Nadira says. “Okay…” She shuffles backwards and slowly glides away. “Hey, look, I’m basically a pro.”

Sarah follows her slowly. “You totally are.”

The moment’s gone. That’s what happens to moments when you wait for too long.

*

Alex was still taking care of the ice in Rink 2 when Nick arrived. Nick patiently waited by the bench, gear already on, fiddling with his water bottle. Not a word of complaint.

Nick called him last week to ask if he could have an hour at the rink this evening. It wasn’t much of an issue, because they have the outdoor rink for public skates now and Thursday evenings aren’t too busy. The hockey team’s in the other rink for practice, and Sarah and Nadira are borrowing the outdoor rink, so Alex has been flitting about to fix up the ice in all rinks.

Now he’s done with the last one and he gives Nick a wave to let him know that he can get on the ice if he wants. Alex just has to get the goals for him and he’s all set.

He’s barely pulled the first goal out onto the ice when Nick is already skating over to him.

There’s probably no good way for Alex to avoid this.

“Hey,” Nick says.

“Hey.”

“You finally came to a game.”

So Nick is getting right to the point. Alex actually sort of prefers Nick’s approach. He had a very awkward conversation with Connor this morning and then Nadira showed up and his mom barged in as well and suddenly him going to a game became a big deal, which was exactly what he was trying to avoid.

Alex abandons the goal for a moment and stands up straight. “I did. And you finally scored a goal.”

“I guess I deserved that one,” Nick says. He tosses his hair out of his face like he’s in a shampoo commercial.

“You did,” Alex says.

Nick smiles and it’s soft and there are no ulterior motives behind it. “Did you have a good time last night?”

Alex hates him a little bit, because he knows exactly which question to ask. He doesn’t ask why he came, he doesn’t ask what changed, he doesn’t ask if it was hard for him. He had to deal with those questions this morning. Needless to say, he left for work early. “Yeah, it was a good game,” Alex says.

“I can’t believe you gave Waldo’s puck away,” Nick says.

Alex rolls his eyes. The kid in front of him was really cute and he already got his fair share of pucks when he was a kid, so he figured he might as well hand it over. “Well, it’s a good thing you were spying on me…”

“Yeah, honestly, don’t ever tell Waldo that the puck you have is not the one he gave you, he’d be so disappointed.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Alex grumbles. “Anyway, that kid seemed pretty happy about getting a puck.”

Nick smirks. “She’s Lee’s kid, she probably has a billion pucks at home already.”

“Lee, as in…”

“Liam Hellström, yeah.”

“Huh,” Alex says. “She’s a cute kid. And she was wearing your jersey.”

Nick smiles again and Alex knows why. People are wearing his jersey. They sat right over there on that bench, sometime before Nick left to play in Canada. They were talking about the league, and the Cardinals, who were in one of their worst slumps in franchise history. Alex’s dad had retired, they’d lost some important players, and they were losing game after game. Alex doesn’t remember the exact conversation they were having, but it was something about the teams they’d want to play for.

“I’m sure the Cardinals would love to have you,” Nick said. “They need another Goldman. Look at how bad they are without your dad.”

“I’d rather not play for them, to be honest.”

“I mean… I get it,” Nick said. “But, seriously, does it matter as long as you get to play? I just wanna play. Can you imagine? There’ll be people with your name on their jerseys.”

He smiled, like he’s smiling right now, imagining that future. And now he’s here. Playing. People wearing his jersey.

Alex is glad that at least one of them made it.  

He catches himself smiling back at Nick, shakes his head and bends down to take care of the net.

“It’s okay, Alex,” Nick says, shuffling back and forth on his skates. “I won’t tell anyone that you had fun. You can keep being grumpy in peace.”

Alex glares up at him. “I’m not grumpy.”

“Yeah, you don’t look grumpy at all.”

“Hey, Nicky, how about you stop being sassy and go back to talking about how you need to get more pucks to the net?”

“We do need to get more pucks to the net,” Nick says, absolutely deadpan. “Get pucks in deep.”

“Shush.” Alex lifts up the net and puts it into place. “Here. You want the other one?”

“One is fine,” Nick says.

“Okay. I’ll be upstairs.”

Nick grabs him by the elbow. “Hey, Alex…”

“What?”

“Just wondering. Are you gonna come to another game?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. He wants to. He did have a good time, and he missed it, even if he was just watching.

“You know, you have friends who can get you tickets. For free.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at him. Maybe Nick is talking about Connor, but Alex has a feeling that Nick would get him a ticket if he asked. Not that he’d ask Nick for anything. So he just shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.” He shuffles over to the Zamboni entrance. “You’d better start skating.”

“You wanna skate with me?” Nick asks.

“No.”

“Not today or not ever?”

Alex sighs. “I don’t know.” Because, honestly? He really doesn’t. He  _should_  know. He should know what he wants and where he wants to go from here, but he doesn’t and he always thought that one day everything would become clearer, that he’d figure things out, but in many ways he’s still in the same place that he was in when he first started working at the rink.

“Alex,” Nick says.

“Yes?”

“Can we just talk? I really want to–”

Alex is so not in the mood for this. “Nick…”

“Not today or not ever?”

“Not today,” Alex says. He thought he’d just avoid Nick for the rest of eternity, but now they keep seeing each other, and Connor’s started inviting Nick over to their place, and then Nick keeps booking the rink, so avoiding him for the rest of eternity isn’t working too well for him. They’ll have to talk at some point; Alex can’t keep this up forever, but he’s not ready for that conversation, especially not when he has so many other things to deal with.

Like his mom being around.

Nick doesn’t seem to be too surprised that Alex is shooting him down again. “Okay. When?”

“I don’t know.”

Nick nods. “Okay.”

He lets Alex go then and Alex goes upstairs to be grumpy in the front office. Because, yeah, he  _is_ grumpy. Byron is asleep under the table and he makes a soft, sleepy noise when Alex reaches down to scratch his ears.

Alex actually does manage to get some work done, but then Sarah and Nadira drop in to return their rental skates, both of them red-faced and covered in snowflakes. Once they’ve left, discussing whether they should go to  _Giuliana’s_  for pizza or to the bar for an assortment of junk food, Alex drops in on hockey practice.

Finn is sitting in the last grow, grinning at Alex when he sits down next to him.

“How is life, Alexander?”

“Let’s not.”

“Yeah, actually, let’s not,” Finn says, glaring down at the ice, where Andy is wrestling with one of the guys.

Finn has been around a lot more recently, but that’s not just because of Andy. He often locks up instead of Sarah these days, because she usually has practice in the evening several times a week.

They don’t talk much. Alex is glad that Finn doesn’t expect him to say anything. Finn eventually just wraps an arm around him and starts playing with one of Alex’s hoodie strings. They don’t notice Nick sneaking up on them, although there’s likely very little sneaking involved. He’s just standing right next to them all of a sudden.

“Hey, sorry…” He’s looking down at Alex and Finn with a somewhat confused look on his face. “Do you have a moment?”

“Yeah, he does,” Finn says before Alex can reply.

“Sorry,” Alex says and leads Nick back into the hallway. “Got a little distracted there.”

“I still need to pay,” Nick says. “And I was wondering… We have our bye week in January, could have some ice time in the morning?”

“You’re not going on vacation with the guys?” Alex asks. He’s pretty sure that Connor said something about a trip to the Bahamas with some of his teammates.

Nick only shakes his head.

“I’ll have a look at our schedule tomorrow and I’ll figure something out for you,” Alex says. They’ll still have the outdoor rink in January, so it shouldn’t be a huge problem. Having Nick around every day… that might be a problem.

“Thanks, Alex.” Nick pays for the ice time tonight and writes down his bye week dates for Alex. Then he coos at Byron and Byron actually gets off his butt to poke his head out the door for pets.

“It’s snowing,” Alex says when Nick turns to leave.

Nick stops in his tracks. “Okay?”

Honestly, does Alex have to spell it out for him? He nods at the door. “Be safe.”

“Oh. Yeah. You, too.”


	42. confessions, Chapter 9.1

**confessions**

 

**Chapter 9.1**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Watch the new episode of CardinalsTV for a special New Year’s message from the team! #GoCardsGo

*

Connor doesn’t check what time it is when he gets up. They’re probably approaching noon, but it doesn’t really matter. No morning skate today, no game tonight.

It’s New Year’s Eve. Since he got drafted, he hasn’t had a single New Year’s Eve without a hockey game. Last year, he was on the road with the Colorado Hawks. They were in Calgary. The year before, he drove to Lucy’s place after a home game. Lucy was waiting for him, already in pajamas, wrapped in a soft blanket.

He rolls over with a groan and grabs his phone. It’s not a good time to think about Lucy. She was in New York to spend the holidays with her aunt and uncle. She sent him pictures; apparently her entire family was there. Connor has met all of them, has been invited to birthday parties and family gatherings. She even suggested she could come up for the Cardinals game on the 27th, but Connor eventually told her not to, because– Yeah. No. Just no.

It’s not a good time to think about Lucy.

Connor replies to a few texts and eventually crawls out of bed. It seems that everyone else is already awake, which is hardly surprising. Connor got back from Philadelphia late last night after their plane got delayed and the only one around to greet him was Byron, who only blinked at him from his cushion in the living room when Connor checked if anyone was still awake.

When he shuffles into the kitchen, Byron immediately comes over to him, bumping his nose against Connor’s hand. “Hey, buddy, did you miss me?”

“I’m sure he did,” Alex says. “Do you want waffles?”

Connor looks up and finds Alex and Nadira over on the kitchen table, a plate with a gigantic stack of waffles between them. “Yes, I want all the waffles.”

Nadira narrows her eyes at him and pulls the plate closer to her.

“Hey,” Alex says. “Share.”

Connor sits down, only now seeing that there’s not just waffles, but also eggs and bacon and bowl of strawberries. “Wow.”

“I know, right?” Nadira says. “Alex is the best.”

“He totally is the best,” Connor agrees.

Byron joins them at the table – well,  _under_  the table – waiting for something to accidentally fall off a plate.

“Do you need any help with, like, party stuff?” Connor asks.

“Nah,” Alex says.

“We went grocery shopping yesterday and we bought all the food in the world,” Nadira says. “We’re snack central.”

Alex grins. “I’m gonna go pick up the pizza around seven, we’re all good. This isn’t the first time I’m hosting a party, don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?” Nadira asks. She turns to Connor, lips pursed. “Alex didn’t want to get party hats.”

“ _Alex_ …”

Alex rolls his eyes as he takes a piece of bacon. “Forgive me. It seems that I’ve been doing parties wrong all my life.”

“Yeah,” Nadira says, shaking her head.

“I’ll put on a party hat for five seconds, will that make you happy?”

“Only if we take a picture and put it on the fridge.”

Alex laughs. “I’ll think about it.”

He’s been in a much better mood since his mom went back to Seattle. Connor actually didn’t mind having Angelica around. She was nice. She invited them all out for dinner before she left. But Connor could tell that her being around changed Alex. He barely said anything anymore, hid in his room as soon as he got home, sometimes even stayed out later than usual just to avoid her.

“So, what were you guys doing while I was off destroying the Comets and being destroyed by the Foxes? Other than buying snacks?”

“Well, I watched Sarah destroy the Bolts last night,” Nadira says, smiling broadly.

“How was Sarah’s birthday dinner, by the way?”

Alex smirks, just a little bit.

Connor wishes he’d been around for that, but he was on the way to North Carolina with the team.

“It was fun,” Nadira says. “At least the part that I remember.”

“Oh boy.”

“When I drove her home she wouldn’t stop singing your goal song, it was–”

“Fun,” Nadira throws in. “Right? Best night of your life?”

Alex shoots her a half-hearted glare.

“Speaking of birthdays,” Connor says and winks at Alex.

“Yeah, let’s not speak of birthdays anymore,” Alex mutters. “Eat more waffles.”

“Aw.”

“So,” Alex says, clearly trying to move on swiftly, “did you guys invite any more people? Now would be a great time to tell me.”

Nadira shoots Connor a sheepish smile. The two of them really have been busy inviting people to Alex’s annual New Year’s party.

“So, that party…” Nadira said when Alex first told them about it. “Can we bring people?”

“You wanna invite Sarah?” Alex asked. “I don’t mind if you invite Sarah.”

So Nadira invited Sarah and then a few days later, when they were all gathered in the kitchen in the morning, enjoying their very different breakfast cereals, she asked if Sarah could bring Nessie. And then she asked if Steph and her girlfriend could come.

It worked similarly for Connor. He asked if he could invite Nick. If Alex had any problems with that, he hid it extremely well – he just shrugged and said, “Sure.” And then Willie told him at practice that he’d just broken up with his girlfriend and that he was going to spend the holidays with her but now he couldn’t. Mattie invited him over for Christmas and Connor invited him over for New Year’s. And he obviously had to invite Santa. And Santa is bringing his girlfriend.

And suddenly they had a few more guests than expected.

Alex seems mostly unfazed. “The party room downstairs is definitely big enough,” he keeps saying. He’s not wrong. There’s a bar down there, a pool table, several couches and chairs and a flatscreen TV on the wall. Connor invited Nick over before Christmas and they watched a game down there. It’s great. There’s hockey stuff all over the walls, although the really cool stuff is obviously in the room that Nadira shoots her videos in.

They call it the Cardinals Shrine. Connor has made a few contributions as well.

“Well,” Nadira says. “I could definitely find more people to invite.”

“Please don’t.” Alex grabs his phone from the windowsill behind him. “Ashely and Jamie are coming, Finn is coming, a bunch of guys from the hockey team are coming, so I think we’re good.”

“Man, there are gonna be so many hockey players around tonight,” Nadira says.

“Willie is single,” Connor says.

Nadira raises his eyebrows at him. “And why are you telling me, your household lesbian, this?”

“Right. I’m a little slow sometimes,” Connor says. “In the morning. You know, I did come home in the middle of the night. After a grueling defeat.”

“Ugh, I hate the Foxes.”

“Also, back-to-back games are hard,” Connor grumbles. “Stop rubbing it in.”

“You know, Harrison is giving you a lot of ice time,” Alex says quietly. “A lot more than in the beginning of the season.”

Connor smiles down at his waffle. “I’ve noticed.”

Alex nods. “I’m calling it now, they’re gonna ask you to re-sign with them. Maybe even before the season is over.”

Connor knows he shouldn’t get too excited, they still have about half the season ahead of them, and there are many, many things that can go wrong between now and the beginning of April, but… yeah. He’s doing well. He’s doing better than he expected, better than the Cardinals expected. It’s because of Santa, and because one of the assistant coaches, Adam, has been working with him right from the start, and it’s because people believed in him again all of a sudden.

Alex puts the last piece of bacon on Connor’s plate. “Nice work.” He stands up and grabs his plate. “I’m gonna take Byron for a walk.”

Byron scrambles out from under the table, tail wagging.

“Yeah, I said  _walk_ , you heard that, didn’t you?” Alex mumbles. He dumps his plate in the sink and beckons Byron to follow him. He stops in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, if you sing Happy Birthday to me at midnight, I’ll never speak to you ever again.”

“Duly noted,” Connor says.

*

“I’m, like, a million years early, I know,” Sarah says when Connor opens the door for her. “I’m sorry. Nessie is at her parents’ house for dinner, so I figured I might as well come over.” She holds up two bottles of wine. “I come bearing gifts.”

“No worries, we’re just hanging out,” he says and waves her into the house.

Sarah and her two bottles of wine join Nadira and Alex in the living room. It seems that they’re watching the Colorado Hawks’ afternoon game.

“Checking up on your former team?” Sarah asks as she sits down. Next to Alex. Not next to Nadira. Because one of her New Year’s resolutions is that she’ll stop torturing herself, because she’s not ready for another relationship anyway, and she might as well get started on that early.

Connor grins. “Yeah, gotta check in every now and then.”

“Doesn’t it fill you with immense glee…” Nadira trails off and clears her throat. “I mean, this is completely off the record, obviously, but, like, they traded you and now you have four goals already and, sure, they’re not  _bad_ , but isn’t this just… awesome?”

“It’s nice that the Cardinals decided to give me a chance,” Connor says.

“That was rehearsed.”

“You know who really dodged a bullet?” Sarah says. “Nick. The Lions are terrible this season.”

“Ohh, they so are. Completely falling apart,” Nadira agrees. “Although I think part of the reason why they’re so bad is because he’s not there anymore. They needed a new winger for Rivs, not a new center. They should have kept him.”

Alex hums quietly. If Sarah isn’t totally wrong, there’s some disapproval in it. It’s his first contribution to this conversation.

“What was that?” Nadira asks.

“Nothing.”

“No, do share your opinions.”

“I mean, from the Lions’ perspective you’re right, they shouldn’t have traded him, but getting traded to the Cardinals is probably the best thing that could have happened to Nick.”

“Getting traded to the Cardinals was the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Connor says.

“Well,” Nadira says with a grin, “the Cardinals have a reputation of… uh…”

“Taking in strays,” Alex finishes for her.

“Hey,” Connor says and reaches back to swat at Alex. “Meanie.”

Alex only grins at him. “Keep watching, Shane’s about to score.”

Connor turns back to the TV. Shane Wilds has just gone on a breakaway and does indeed score a moment later.

“Nice,” Conner says and grabs his phone.

“Are you texting him?”

“Of  _course_  I’m texting him.”

“Please tell him that I love him,” Nadira says. “In a very not creepy way.” She smirks at Sarah. “Is that wine for now or for later.”

“It’s for… whenever.”

Nadira opens a bottle for them and they drink the wine out of plastic cups. Sarah is glad that Nadira has invited her to spend the night, although she’ll probably stay in Nadira’s room, which means she’ll likely die of heart-eyes. That’s a common cause of death, right? Having such a huge crush that it sort of just murders you? Yeah.

Alex eventually leaves to get the pizza and they turn off the TV, go downstairs and turn on the TV in the rec room.

The Goldmans have a bar down here, several couches and a huge table next to a shelf with board games and VHS tapes. It seems that Alex doesn’t use this room all that often and has taken the DVDs and video games upstairs. A string of lights has been wrapped around the bar and the walls are painted red. There are a few hockey photos on the walls and someone has put up a  _Mighty Ducks_  movie poster behind the bar. Sarah’s favorite thing down here are the pucks that are stuck to the bar, though. A couple of them look like they’re signed.

Nadira pours some more wine into Sarah’s cup. “I hate New Year’s Eve,” she says.

“Why?” Connor asks.

Nadira rolls her eyes. “Because of the  _kissing_. I never find anyone to kiss. So my midnights mostly involve watching other people kiss. Which is depressing.”

“I’ll kiss you,” Connor says and tugs at the end of Nadira’s braid. “Like… on the cheek. But, hey, maybe you’ll find someone this year.”  

Sarah might be imagining things, but she’s pretty sure that Connor shoots her a knowing look when he says that.


	43. confessions, Chapter 9.2

**confessions**

 

**Chapter 9.2**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

why is new year’s eve always the best and the worst day of the year

*

When Ashley pulls up to Alex’s house, cars are already parked out front and on the gravel, but Ashley manages to squeeze her car in between Finn’s and a tree. Jamie gives her a look that’s an obvious complaint about the parking situation, because they’re not fully on the gravel, which means that the car might get muddy and that would certainly mean the end of the world.

“Man,” Jamie says, as they walk up the steps. He nods at an extra fancy Mercedes that’s parked on a patch of lawn next to the driveway. Alex has never cared much where people park.

“Probably one of Connor’s teammates,” Ashley says.

They let themselves in – they know the way to the party, they’ve been invited to a great number of basement gatherings over the years, but Alex has also stuck a piece of paper to the door to make sure everyone knows where to go.

The basement is already teeming with people. Finn is there, hugging Ashley as soon as she’s in through the door. Alex is behind the bar, mixing cocktails with Andy and Riley from the hockey team. Connor is playing a card game with Nadira, Sarah, and a couple of girls that Ashley doesn’t immediately recognize. She assumes those are Sarah’s teammates.

Ashley does recognize Connor’s teammates, though. Santa, and the Cardinals’ backup goalie whose name she can’t remember. Nick apparently isn’t here yet.

She drags Jamie over to the bar to say hello to Alex, then they grab some pizza and join Nadira and Sarah at their table. Sarah introduces them to her teammates while Nadira shakes her head at them for not getting a drink while they were over by the bar.

“The boys are making cocktails,” Nadira says, nodding at the bar, where Andy is pouring an extremely pink cocktail into a glass that’s decorated with a strawberry.

Nessie waves at them, points at the cocktails and then at their table.

Riley, his face going bright right, nods and grabs two of the cocktails to deliver them.

“He’s cute,” Nessie says, giving Sarah’s arm a poke. “Is he single?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’m pretty sure that he is,” Jamie throws in, “because otherwise his girlfriend would probably be here too, right?”

“Sherlock,” Nessie says and nods approvingly. “My new favorite person.” Her smile becomes extra bright when Riley approaches their table.

“Hey,” he says as he puts down two glasses.

“Hi, there,” Nessie says.

Riley, who’s very pale and very ginger – honestly, he and Ashley have been joking about them probably being distant cousins – turns the color of a ripe tomato. “Enjoy,” he says and retreats, tripping over his own feet as he makes his way back over to the bar.

“You’re killing the poor boy,” Steph says.

Nessie looks over her shoulder to cast a glance at the bar before she turns back to them, looking immensely pleased. “I know. Not gonna lie, New Year’s Eve is so stressful with all the resolutions and the plans and the kissing–”

Nadira huffs in agreement.

“–but this year might not be so bad.”

Sarah makes a face.

“What?”

“It’s just weird… I’ve always had someone to kiss, at least during the last couple of years, and now and single and… yeah. It’s weird.”

“Okay, but the guy you dumped was actual trash,” Nessie says.

“True.”

Ashley reaches over to pat Jamie’s thigh under the table and he smiles. She’s honestly so lucky that she found a nice boy who loves and respects her, despite her Ellen Degeneres obsession and her tendency to buy too much candy, and will kiss her at midnight. And has been kissing her at midnight since high school.

Not that it’s that important. They’ve had some years where things didn’t quite go their way. Like that one year when Jamie slipped on the way to her house and they ended up in the emergency room. Or the year Ashley had the flu and couldn’t even leave her bed. But those were just minor hiccoughs.

Jamie wraps an arm around her and pulls her against him.

“Aw, you guys are so cute,” Nessie says. Head tilted, she turns to Steph and Anna. “You guys are cute, too.”

“You know,” Steph says, glancing at Connor and his teammates, “Wilson looks like he might have his eyes on you, too.”

Right, that’s the backup goalie’s name. Wilson. When Ashley looks up, Wilson is staring at them, but he quickly looks away and starts talking to Santa’s girlfriend.

“Please,” Nessie says, shaking her head, “I’m as cute as you guys all on my own.”

*

Nick arrives about half an hour late and only barely manages to find a spot for his car in Alex’s driveway. He fell asleep on the couch and woke up way too late, scrambled upstairs to change and quickly drove over.

He’s not sure if he actually wants to be here, but it’s better than spending the evening on his own in any case.

A sign at the door tells him to let himself in, so he does. He doesn’t have trouble finding the stairs that lead down to the basement – there’s a sign with a huge arrow pointing to it and, well, Nick has been here before. He’s been in that basement before, in a room that was pretty much empty except for some hockey gear, shooting pucks at an old net, putting dents in the wall.

The party room downstairs is already full of people. Thankfully Nick knows most of them so he doesn’t feel like he’d rather walk straight back out again.

Santa wraps an arm around him to greet him about five seconds after he walked in through the door. “Niiiicky.”

“Hey.”

Connor grins at him and nods at the bar. “Boys are making dangerous drinks.” Alex is behind the bar with two other guys that Nick is sure he’s seen before at the rink. Right when Nick is busy staring at them, trying to remember their names, Alex looks up, his eyes immediately finding Nick.

A little awkwardly, Nick waves at him. He should go over there and say hello, but Santa is still holding on to him and Nick doesn’t mind having an excuse not to talk to Alex immediately. Alex isn’t looking at him anymore, but the two guys who are behind the bar with him keep glancing at them.

“Are those guys on the Vikings?” Nick asks.

Connor nods. “Alex’s friends from the rink. And– Well, you know Finn, right? And Sarah and Bee’s teammates.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. He’s pretty sure that he has at least come across everyone who’s here at some point. He shouldn’t be feeling this awkward about being here, but parties just aren’t his thing. Nick doesn’t drink much, because he doesn’t need any kind of negative attention. He doesn’t exactly excel at small talk either, unless he gets to talk about hockey.

Luckily, Bee and Willie are talking about the Panthers’ season, so Nick can insert himself into that conversation for a little while until Bee leaves them to join her teammates. Santa leaves to get another drink, but gets roped into a conversation over by the bar.

If Nick waits any longer to say hello to Alex, it’s just going to make things even more awkward, so he slips away from Connor and Willie who are getting deep into a discussion about the quality of the golf courses in the area.

“Hey,” Nick says, mostly to Alex, because the other guys are so fascinated by whatever Santa is saying that they don’t seem to notice whatever else is going on around them.

Alex actually seems relieved when he gets to turn away from their conversation. “Hey,” he says. “Pizza?”

“Pizza sounds good,” Nick says and Alex hands him a Disney paper plate with two slices on it from behind the bar. “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

Nick takes a bite, unsure if he should stay at the bar or go back to the golf course discussion.

“So, how are things?” Alex asks.

Nick only blinks at him for a moment, because if he’s not totally wrong, Alex is trying to have an actual conversation with him. “Good,” Nick says.

“Good,” Alex echoes.

“Oh, do we have more pizza?”

Nick looks up and finds Finn standing next to him, eyeing his pizza with interest.

“Yeah.” Alex hands him an entire pizza carton. “No need to think about stealing Nick’s. There’s more than enough.”

Finn smiles down at the pizza like it’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever been given, then he grabs a napkin, balls it up and throws it at one of the guys who are talking to Santa. “Hey, Daniels.”

“Huh?”

“What happened to the very pink cocktails?”

“We’ve had a bit of a lull in production,” Alex says. “Andy got distracted.”

Andy flips him off and grabs a couple of bottles. “I’m on it. Does anyone else want one?”

“I’ll try one,” Santa says.

Nick ends up with a cocktail as well, then Santa starts taking pictures and Nick looks around for a place to hide. He doesn’t want his private life out in the open, not even a scrap of it. His Twitter account is solely composed of retweets and the occasional hockey-related news. He doesn’t have an Instagram. He doesn’t mind if pictures of him end up on his teammates’ accounts as long as it’s about work, but this isn’t work. It’s New Year’s Eve.

He leaves the bar and runs into one of Sarah’s teammates – it’s Mikey’s sister Steph. She introduces him to her girlfriend and they end up talking for a while. By the time Finn sneaks up to him, to hand him another cocktail, Nick isn’t even thinking about escaping early and going back home anymore.

“These are good,” Nick says and plucks the strawberry off the rim of his glass.

Finn smiles at him. “I know, right?” He glances over his shoulder, at the bar where Alex and Andy are still busy mixing cocktails. It looks like they’ve moved on to something involving pineapples. “Well, enjoy.” He winks at Nick and wanders off.

Nick honestly isn’t the fastest thinker sometimes, but he’s pretty sure that Finn was flirting with him. He shakes his head. Finn is back over by the bar now, an arm draped around Alex, trying to snatch a piece of pineapple from Andy. He’s definitely not here to make assumptions about Alex’s private life, but Nick has seen him and Finn at the rink, how they are around each other, how they talk to each other, and he wouldn’t be surprised if there was something going on there.

At this point, the distinctive groups they were all huddled in when Nick got here have dispersed. Willie has obviously been adopted by Sarah, Bee, Steph, and Anna, over by the bar Nessie is playing some sort of card game with the ginger kid whose name Nick still can’t remember, Alex is talking to Santa, and the others have taken over the couches and have snatched the last of the pizza.

Nick is considering going over there for another slice when the door opens and two more of Alex’s friends come bounding into the basement. Nick knows these two. Mateo and Ryan, if Nick remembers correctly. “Heeey, sorry we’re late,” Mateo says and dumps two plastic bags on the bar. “We come bearing gifts.”

“Thanks, guys.”

“It’s cold as balls out there,” Ryan grumbles as he pulls off his hat. “Guess there was an accident on the highway. We were stuck in traffic and then we got off an exit early and I took a wrong turn because–” Ryan says.

“Because he thought he was smarter than the GPS,” Mateo interrupts.

“Whatever.” Ryan waves him off. “Anyway, looked like a real nasty crash, like, one of the cars was upside down.”

“Roads are getting icy, I guess,” Mateo says.

“You can stay here tonight if you don’t want to drive back later,” Alex says as he squeezes past them. “I just gotta… check on Byron.” And with that he slips out of the door. It’s a pretty abrupt departure.

The only one who seems to notice is Finn, who frowns, but eventually turns back to teasing Andy.

Nick, for the briefest of moments, wonders if he should follow Alex to make sure he’s all right with all the talk of car accidents, but maybe he’s really just checking on Byron and it would be weird for Nick to follow him upstairs.

So Nick stays put, gets himself another slice of pizza and sits down next to Connor, who’s at the bar with Nessie and Sarah.

They’re apparently doing tequila shots and Nick politely refuses to participate.

“You know, you can definitely stay here tonight,” Connor says, almost knocking over his empty shot glass. “No need to worry about driving home or whatever.”

“That’s not gonna make me like tequila, though.”

“Cocktail?”

Nick sighs. He wasn’t planning on spending the night here, but he might as well have a little fun. “Yeah, sure, I’ll have another one.”


	44. confessions, Chapter 9.3

**confessions**

 

**Chapter 9.3**

 

*

**David Santana**  @davidsanta

Happy new year from me and little @willynilly31!!!!

*

Nick pulls his phone out of his pocket. He decides to ignore the unopened texts – people know that he’s not always fast with his replies and nothing seems to be urgent. He just wanted to check the time. 10:13 PM. Alex has been gone for almost half an hour and Nick isn’t sure if he should be worried or not.

Next to him, Connor is busy texting, snorting quietly every now and then while Nessie and Sarah are trying to invent a new cocktail, although Sarah seems sort of distracted and keeps looking around, like she’s waiting for someone to arrive.

“Where did Alex go?” Nick asks.

Connor looks up from his phone and glances around the room. “Huh…”

“Oh, I think he went upstairs to check on Byron,” Mateo says.

“Right,” Nick says and turns back to Connor, who’s clearly still occupied with his phone.

“Just Wilder,” Connor mutters when he notices that Nick is looking.

“How’s he doing?”

“Good. Won a game today. They’re down in Florida tonight.”

Nick nods. “Nice.”

“I’d love to go to Florida right about now,” Connor says. “It’s so fucking cold. I thought about going for a run this morning, but… no.”

“Yeah…” Nick isn’t really paying attention to what Connor is saying. Alex still isn’t back and Nick doesn’t like it, especially not paired with the look on Alex’s face when Mateo and Ryan were talking about the car accident on the highway.

He gives it a few more minutes, finishes his cocktail, but then he slips off his chair. “I’ll just…” He points at the door and stalks off. There’s a bathroom across the hall, but he walks straight past it and goes up the stairs.

All the doors are closed except for the one that leads into the kitchen. It’s open just a crack, light spilling into the hallway. Nick hesitates and waits for a few seconds to tick by, considering what he’s doing here, because he doesn’t want to be weird about this. Well, he can always pretend that he’s up here looking for… whatever. He’ll make something up.

He slowly opens the kitchen door and peers inside. The kitchen is spotless and for a moment Nick is sure that it’s empty, but then he hears a low huff and he spots Byron’s tail sticking out from behind the kitchen island.

Nick walks over and finds Byron on the floor with his head in Alex’s lap.

“Oh,” Nick says. “Hey.”

Alex sighs. “Hey.”

“You okay?” Nick asks, because he honestly can’t think of anything better to say.

“Yeah. Just spending some time with my buddy here, so he won’t think that I don’t love him anymore.”

“Right…”

Well, Alex looks like he’s fine, he’s just sitting on the floor with his dog, there’s nothing wrong with that, but still. Nick couldn’t explain why, but he  _knows_  that Alex isn’t fine and he doesn’t really want to leave him here.

“Do you–” Nick stops halfway through the question. If he asks Alex if he wants him to stay, he’ll definitely say no. He shakes his head and sits down next to him, Byron between them, his tail wagging when Nick quickly reaches over to pat his back.

“Really?” Alex asks.

“What?”

“You’re… Never mind.”

“I’ll just sit here,” Nick says. “I won’t even say anything.”

“Okay,” Alex whispers and keeps stroking Byron’s ears.

Nick is pretty good at sitting around and keeping his mouth shut. He doesn’t feel like he needs to fill every silence. He wouldn’t know what to say to Alex anyway. It’s too late to say,  _I’m sorry this happened to you_. It’s not going to help to say,  _I’m sorry you can’t play hockey anymore_. And now is definitely not the time to say,  _I’m sorry I never called_.

Part of him wants to reach out, but it’s not the right time for that either.

He reaches over to pet Byron, though. Byron wags his tail with even more enthusiasm and rolls over so his back is pressed against Nick’s leg. “No, wait…” That was so not what he wanted, because now Byron’s head isn’t in Alex’s lap anymore and that was the whole point.

“It’s fine,” Alex says and holds out his hand. Byron puts his paw in it immediately. “See, that’s a good boy.”

“The best,” Nick agrees.

Alex nods and then leans his head back against the kitchen island. “Did anyone else notice?”

“Huh?”

“That it’s taking me a ridiculously long time to check on my angel of a dog?”

“I don’t know,” Nick says. “Don’t think so.”

Alex hums.

“Anyway, when you check on him, you obviously have to pet him, too.”

“True,” Alex says. He stares up at the ceiling, Byron’s paw still in his hand. “It happened in the summer.”

“What?”

“The accident I was in,” Alex says. “It had nothing to do with ice and slippery roads or whatever. It was just…” He shakes his head. “Just some drunk guy.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick says.

“No, it’s… I’m fine. I just needed a minute.”

“Because you weren’t fine.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Alex grumbles. “Why are you always all up in my business?”

“I don’t know,” Nick says. “Sorry.”

Alex huffs out a laugh. “Whatever. You’re just… like that. You’ve always been like that. See, I don’t really buy your media bullshit, because I know just how much you’d like to sass everyone into oblivion.”

“Yeah, can’t really afford to do that.”

“Don’t want people to think you’re too rebellious, huh?”

“I don’t want people to think  _anything_ ,” Nick says.

“Oh, please, you  _do_  want them to think that you’re brilliant and talented and a gift to the world of hockey.”

Nick can’t help it, he laughs.

Alex smiles and, well, if chirping Nick is what cheered him up, then Nick won’t even complain.

They sit in silence for a little while longer and Byron starts to nod off between them. Up here, you can hear the music from downstairs, and every now and then a burst of laughter. The fridge hums quietly.

“I’m sorry,” Alex eventually says. “I’m not having a good day.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Alex says. He turns to Nick, head tilted. “But I think there’s something you wanted to talk about?”

“What,  _now_?”

“Why not?”

Right. Why not?

He’s been waiting for Alex to stop pushing him away, but he really wasn’t expecting that today would be the day they’d finally manage to talk. “Okay, sure,” Nick says. “Can we, uh…”

“Yeah, let’s go somewhere else,” Alex says and gets up.

*

Alex takes Nick upstairs, Byron following them, because he clearly didn’t like hanging out on his own while everyone was having a good time without him in the basement.

They end up in the upstairs living room that no one has used in several years. When he was a kid, Alex sometimes came in here to watch TV, but in the end it’s a completely useless room with a couple of couches and an old TV in it. People are probably going to sleep in here later tonight, so Alex has dumped a bunch of blankets and pillows on the couches just in case.

Alex makes sure that the door is closed. He doesn’t want anyone to overhear even just a word of this conversation.

It’s an important one. It’s one they should have had a long, long time ago. Maybe now is not a good time to do this. There’s a party going on downstairs and people will probably wonder where they are, but Nick just sat next to him on his kitchen floor for half an hour and Alex is done being mad at him for something he did when he was sixteen and didn’t know any better.

He sits down and Nick joins him on the same couch, quietly regarding Alex. Byron goes around sniffing the couches. He’s probably never even been in this room.

“So…” Alex says.

Nick takes a deep breath and draws his legs up against his chest. “Okay, can I just… talk? Just hear me out, yeah?”

Alex nods. He can do that.

“Okay, so, first of all, I’m sorry, and I’m definitely not trying to make excuses here, honestly, I know I shouldn’t have…” Nick trails off and hesitates for a moment, then he goes on, his voice low, “I shouldn’t have kissed you back then. That was… inappropriate. When I was sixteen, I didn’t get that, I just… I liked you. And that was… Yeah. I’m sorry I did that and I really didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”

At this point, Alex really wants to jump into this conversation, but he said he wouldn’t say anything until Nick is done, and Nick clearly isn’t done yet.

“I was a bad friend. And I should have called you when you were in that accident. I mean, maybe you wouldn’t have wanted to talk to me anyway, but I should have done  _something_.”

When Nick pauses, Alex says, “Nick–”

“No, wait, I’m not done,” Nick interrupts. “I really appreciate that you never told anyone.”

“Nick, come on,” Alex says.

Nick only stares back at him. “I mean it.”

“I know.” Alex sighs. He understands what’s at stake for Nick and he would never even thought about telling anyone what happened all those years ago. “Can I talk now?”

“Yeah.”

Alex doesn’t even know where to start. No, actually he does. “Nicky, do you really think I was mad at you because you kissed me?”

“I… Yeah. I mean. That’s… That was the last time we talked before you left.”

Yeah. That was the last time they talked before Alex went to college. It was the middle of summer. It was late, the rink was closed, but that didn’t keep Alex off the ice. Nick was there with him, and it was just them, the only two people left at the rink. Alex had a key and his dad did a great job of ignoring that Alex stayed at the rink until past midnight just as long as the ice was pristine the next morning.

They didn’t play together that much anymore. Alex played on his school’s team; Nick played in Canada. During that summer, though, they spent entire days together. More often than not, it wasn’t just them. Alex remembers Connor hanging out with them, at the rink, at the mill, at the pool.

Alex doesn’t know why Connor wasn’t there that night. Doesn’t really matter. It was him and Nick. On the ice. Chasing each other, passing a puck back and forth, laughing as they ran each other into the boards.

They were taking a break, slowly going in circles, talking quietly, coming to a stop over by the net where they’d left their water bottles. He was looking down at Nick, joking about how he should be hoping for a growth spurt.

“I don’t need to be tall if I’m faster than everyone else,” Nick said.

Alex was grinning down at him and then Nick just… kissed him. There was no big lead-up, they were just hanging out, and that was pretty much the last thing Alex was expecting. It wasn’t a particularly good kiss. It was over about a second later, simply because Alex was too surprised to react, and then Nick pulled away, his eyes wide, almost shocked.

“I need to go,” Nick said.

And that was the last thing Nick Rivera said to him until he showed up in Cedar Mills again last summer.

“Nick,” Alex says. “I wasn’t mad because you kissed me. I was mad because you just left. You left and you ignored me all summer and treated me like I wasn’t even there. You wouldn’t even look at me anymore.”

“Oh…” Nick shakes his head and pulls the sleeves of his sweater over his hands. “I thought you were angry, so I figured it might be better if I kept my distance. And, well…” Nick shrugs. “I was kinda embarrassed. Because, when– I… I was just… really confused. You know. About that.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. He knows. He just didn’t understand back then. And he was angry and hurt and he was never really able to let that go, but Alex sees how hard it must have been for Nick. He sees that he should have given Nick a chance to apologize much, much earlier.

Nick looks like he wants to reach out for a moment, then he drops his hand in his lap. “You were better at that than I was. You actually told me the truth and when you told me it seemed like it was so easy for you and I could have told you, too, and I honestly don’t know why I didn’t. I just  _couldn’t_.” He sighs softly. “It would have made things a little easier, I guess, but I couldn’t even admit it to myself.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Alex says. “Coming out? It was scary as shit. But, yeah, it does make things easier when there’s someone you can trust.”

“Yeah, uh…” Nick says. He clears his throat. “You and Finn?”

“What about us?”

“Is that a thing?” Nick asks.

Alex snorts. “Well, that was a thing once.”

“Once?”

“A while ago. After I moved back home.”

“Oh. I thought you might be…” Nick shrugs. “Well, I saw you guys at the rink together and you seemed close.”

“We are,” Alex says. “Just not like that. Not anymore, I mean.”

Nick hums. “So, does everyone know?”

“No. Nobody knows.”

Nick almost looks surprised now. “You haven’t told Waldo?”

“Have you told Waldo?” Alex asks. If he had to guess, he’d say that Nick probably hasn’t told  _anyone_. As careful as he is with the media, it likely wouldn’t have felt safe enough for him to do that.

“No. I told you. Sort of. I mean, I suppose you figured it out when I kissed you. And my parents know. And…” Nick shakes his head. “Yeah. No one else. That’s it. I’ve been going out with girls just to… Well, I don’t want people to talk. Because they do.”

With a sigh, Alex reaches out to hug him. In a different universe, that would have been him. He would have been the guy who’s out there dating girls for the sake of his reputation, so nothing will get in the way of him playing hockey. Alex is still lying to everyone around him, but if people knew that he’s gay… well, would it really change things at this point? Not much, not in a way that really matters. It would change things for Nick, though.

Nick slumps against him a little when Alex hugs him. It only feels awkward for a moment, then Alex starts to slowly run his hand up and down Nick’s back. “I’m sorry.” There’s a whole conversation here that they could be having – Nick likely hasn’t been able to open up to anyone in a long, long time – but it’s New Year’s Eve and midnight is approaching, so people will be wondering where they are. This is Alex’s party after all and he should be around for at least some part of it.

When Alex lets go, Nick is smiling. “So…”

“So,” Alex echoes. He has some things to apologize for, too. “I wasn’t exactly nice to you during the last couple of months.”

“It’s okay. You’ve always been a grumpy little shit.”

Alex laughs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Anyway, it’s not like you didn’t have a reason,” Nick says, his voice low. He smiles softly. “So, you wanna skate with me sometime?”

“Oh, shut it,” Alex says and rolls his eyes at him. He gives Nick a nudge. “Let’s go back downstairs, all right?”

“Yeah, almost midnight.” Nick stands up and then freezes. “Hey, it’s gonna be your b–”

“Don’t even say the word birthday in my general vicinity.”

“Okay?”

“Let’s just go back downstairs.”

Nick gives him a look that Alex can’t quite read. “Sure. Yeah. Won’t mention the birth– the thing. Won’t mention it. Ever.”

“Good,” Alex says. He doesn’t want his birthday to be a big deal. He doesn’t want to think about it.

It’s just not a good day for him.


	45. confessions, Chapter 9.4

**confessions**

 

**Chapter 9.4**

 

*

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

happy new year to everyone but especially @ConnorWaldo’s roommate’s dog

|

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

he deserves the happiest of new years

*

You can tell that midnight is approaching, because everyone who’s here with their partner starts gravitating towards them. It’s still half an hour until midnight and Sarah has a decision to make here.

Nadira is over by the bar, talking to Bee and Santa, but she keeps glancing over at Sarah, smiling at her, and, well, maybe that’s a thing. Maybe it means something. Or maybe it doesn’t. So, yeah. She has thirty  minutes to figure that out, or at least to make up her mind and decide what she’s going to do when midnight rolls around.

Her options are basically staying over here and watching a bunch of people in relationships as they celebrate the new year or she can do something and find someone to celebrate the new year with.

Next to her, Nessie is losing it about a knock knock joke that one of the hockey guys just told her, and Ashley has dragged Jamie off to hell-knows-where to do fuck-knows-what. The basement has definitely emptied a little during the last half hour or so. Alex is missing. So are Nick and Connor. She doesn’t see Finn anywhere either. Over at the table, a beer pong tournament is in full swing. The local boys seem to be winning.

Their ginger friend, Riley, leaves their table and Nessie scoots over to Sarah with a smirk on her face. “He’s cute,” Nessie says.

“I guess.”

“Not your type?”

“Not even a little bit,” Sarah says. She’s not sure if she has a type. Right now her type is Nadira.

“Do you think he’ll be okay with me kissing him at midnight and then never calling him, because I’m allergic to relationships?”

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“Why are you so reasonable?” Nessie says and hands Sarah an empty shot glass. “Wait…” She quickly exchanges it for one that still has tequila in it. “ _There_. Be less reasonable.”

“Nessie.”

“I know,” Nessie says and stands up. “I’ll go ask a boy about kissing.”

Sarah watches her go. She should do the same. Go and ask a girl about kissing. Except she doesn’t just want to  _kiss_  Nadira. But, then again, she’s also not sure if she wants a relationship with Nadira. Not that she’s  _allergic to relationships_  like Nessie, but it’s only been a few months since she broke up with Nate.

They were together for years. They were gonna get married. And, sure, she broke up with him, but that doesn’t mean that she didn’t love him anymore. It wasn’t  _easy_.

She has no idea if she’s ready for another relationship. And maybe Nadira wouldn’t even want that; Sarah just doesn’t know. Which is why she should talk to her. Why is she always reasonable when it’s about other people? Her own life is a major disaster and her communication skills clearly need some work.

Sarah looks over her shoulder – Nadira is still sitting at the bar. She grins when she sees Sarah looking at her. Okay. Whatever. Maybe Sarah is reading too much into this, but there’s really only one way to find out. Sarah grabs the shot of tequila. Then she puts it down again.

No. She’ll be reasonable.

And she’ll start by just going over there.

*

“Okay, buddy, you’re gonna have to hang out in here for a little while longer,” Alex says and opens the kitchen door for Byron.

“Poor puppy,” Nick says.

“He’ll be fine.” Alex pats Byron’s head. “Isn’t that right?”

“Hey, guys.”

They both jump when Connor shows up behind them, holding his phone charger.

“Hey,” Alex says and ushers Byron into the kitchen.

Connor doesn’t really look too surprised to find Alex and Nick lurking in the hallway, so Nick probably shouldn’t be worried. Connor only hums and follows Byron into the kitchen to plug in his phone.

“Can’t wait to see if someone’s lost their shoes yet,” Alex says as he makes for the basement stairs.

“Does that happen a lot?” Nick asks. “That, uh, people lose their shoes in your basement?”

“All the time.”

There’s a story behind that, Nick is sure, but all he really wants to know, all he wants to ask is,  _Are we okay now?_  Obviously it’s not that easy, they still have a lot to talk about, there’s a lot they may never really talk about, but this is better than nothing. They talked. That’s a step in the right direction. And Nick desperately wants Alex back in his life.

He doesn’t just want to exchange a few words at the rink or wave awkwardly at him when Connor invites him over. They used to talk so much back in the day when they were hanging out and sometimes they’d forget that they were playing hockey and they’d sit on the boards by the bench and talk. There’s no way they’re going back to that, but Nick has learned that there’s no going back anyway, there’s only going forward and he thinks that they’ll at least manage that.

“Can you close the door when you come back downstairs?” Alex says to Connor. “I just don’t want him in the middle of a party.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“All right…” Alex pulls the door shut and leads Nick back over to the stairs, but he doesn’t go down right away. “Nick…”

“Yeah?”

Alex, eyes on his feet, says, “Thanks… for earlier. For, you know, sticking around. That was nice of you.”

“Sure,” Nick says.

Alex declares that conversation officially over when he starts heading down the stairs and Nick follows him, only to walk right into him at the bottom.

“Hey, guys,” Alex says, clearly amused.

Nick peers over Alex’s shoulder and finds Finn and Andy standing on opposite sides on the hallway, apparently just hanging out.

“Hey,” Andy says.

“Hey,” Finn says.

And Nick, because he’s not quite sure what’s going on, also says, “Hey.”

“Moving on,” Alex says and literally grabs Nick by the sleeve and drags him down the hallway.

“What was that all about?” Nick whispers to Alex as they rejoin the party.

Someone has decided that it’s time to blast ‘Africa’ by Toto, and Santa and Willie are singing along with passion.

“Midnight’s approaching and we didn’t want to be in the way of anything, right?” Alex says.

“Wait, wha– Oh.”

“Yeah,” Alex says with a laugh and steers him towards the bar.

Nick feels like they’re not quite done talking, or maybe there’s just too much he wants to say to Alex now that there’s a chance that Alex might actually want to listen to him.

All this time he thought Alex was mad at him because he tried to kiss him. It seemed like the only logical explanation. He thought Alex was scared that someone might have seen, didn’t want the wrong people to find out, wanted to keep his secrets as close as he could, and Nick kissing him might have fucked that all up.

Back then, when Alex told him he was gay, Nick was so relieved. He wasn’t the only one anymore. He finally had someone in his corner. He couldn’t quite work up the courage to actually tell Alex, he wasn’t even home that much anymore, but that summer everything changed. He spent all this time with Nick, was constantly with him at the rink and he developed that stupid crush and everything just went to shit from there on out. Because he kissed Alex. And then he panicked. And he got out of there as quickly as he could.

He thought he was doing Alex a favor by staying the hell away from him for the rest of the summer. He didn’t think Alex even wanted to talk to him. And even then Nick knew that he should apologize, but he was hurt, and embarrassed, and not sure how to deal with being a little bit in love with a boy, and so he didn’t. Nick left after that summer and his parents moved away and Nick didn’t return to Cedar Mills until he got traded to the Cardinals.

Over by the bar, Nick ends up sitting next to Alex.

They don’t talk about anything of substance, but Nick still feels like something has shifted between them, just because they can sit next to each other and talk about how there wasn’t enough cheese on the pizza.

It’s ten minutes to midnight.

Nick doesn’t really have any resolutions. Everything resolved itself before the clock struck twelve.

*

Byron clearly isn’t happy that there’s a party going on downstairs that he wasn’t invited to. He sits down next to Connor when he plugs in his phone in the kitchen, tail wagging, waiting for head scratches.

Connor indulges him as he waits for his phone to come back to life. He’s been taking photos with the guys and then he started texting Shane, happily ignoring the low battery warning.

As soon as his phone comes back on, he gets two more texts.

 

**[Wilder]**

_anyway now i’m sort of just hiding in a corner_

**[Wilder]**

_Oreo has been trying to drag me on the dancefloor_

Poor Shane is clearly not having that great of a New Year’s Eve. He’s at some club with the guys down in Florida to celebrate and Oreo has been trying to set Shane up with a bunch of girls. Connor really kinda feels bad for him. Connor replies quickly –  _well it’s almost midnight, just wish everyone a happy new year and go back to the hotel_.

 

**[Wilder]**

_you’d save me from this if you were here_

_I totally would_ , Connor replies.

 

**[Wilder]**

_found anyone to kiss? i’ve accepted my fate… i will probably never kiss anyone ever again_

Connor knows that Shane is trying to be funny, but he can sense that he’s actually having a pretty terrible day. He knows Shane well enough to know these things. There’s nothing in the world they haven’t told each other. Connor sends him a frowny face and then snaps a picture of Byron, who’s now lying curled up next to his feet –  _I’ll just hug this guy at midnight_. He wishes he could give Shane a hug, too, because he definitely needs one.

He’ll see Shane only one more time this season when the Cardinals are in Denver in February, but for now Connor can’t do much to make Shane feel better. He should go downstairs and rejoin the party, but he also doesn’t like the thought of Shane hiding in a corner, because he’s sad.

All Connor can do right now is to send Shane another message to tell him that he hopes things won’t look quite as bleak tomorrow, but that’s easy for him to say; he’s not the one who’s having an abysmal time at a club somewhere in Florida with no one to talk to other than a guy who’s drunk, not very helpful, and a thousand miles away.

His phone buzzes with another text.

 

**[Wilder]**

_it’s okay, go back to your party, i’m fine…. i’ll let someone drag me on the dancefloor and i’ll make them all jealous with my moves_

Connor doesn’t like it much, but he accepts that he won’t be able to fix things for Shane tonight, locks his phone, gives Byron a gentle pat, and goes back downstairs.


	46. confessions, Chapter 9.5

**confession**

 

**Chapter 9.5**

 

*

**David Santana**  @davidsanta

midnight smoochies xoxo :)) instagram.com/p/87rD1

*

“Three minutes,” Jamie says, quickly turning his phone screen back off.

“This was a bad idea. I’m sorry. It seemed really romantic, but now that we’re here, I realize that it’s just… cold.”

Jamie snorts and his breath rises up in a cloud.

They’re on the back porch, because that’s where they kissed at midnight last year and Ashley thought it would be really lovely and romantic to come back here this year and kiss under the stars or some shit like that. Only this year it’s fucking freezing and Ashley is convinced that she will actually never be warm again.

Jamie has his arms wrapped around her, but his arms are cold, too.

Well. Three more minutes. She can freeze her ass off for love and romance for three more minutes. She works at an ice rink, for heaven’s sake.

“Love you,” Jamie says and Ashley knows that he’s kissing the top of her head, but she can’t really feel it, because she’s wearing a hat and has pulled the hood of her parka over it.

“Love you, too,” Ashley whispers back. “In three minutes it’ll be the year we get married.”

“Maybe it’s only two minutes at this point.”

“Man, I hope it’s only two minutes.”

“We can always go back inside.”

“Shush, I’m not a quitter,” Ashley grumbles. She looks up and all she sees is Jamie’s chin stubble. It’s not exactly gazing lovingly into your soulmates eyes or whatever it was she was going for.

Jamie does her a favor and looks down at her, though. He’s really cute, even when he refuses to shave.

“Sweetie,” Ashley says.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been thinking…” Ashley trails off, because she’s not a hundred percent sure where she’s going with this. “I feel like I want to do something.”

“Something?”

“Yeah. You know. A new hobby or  _something_. I just feel like I need something new. Would that bother you?”

“No, of course not,” Jamie says. “Do you wanna take classes?”

“Classes?”

“Yeah, like… photography.”

“Oh…” Honestly, Ashley hadn’t really thought about it too much. All she knows is that recently she’s been feeling like she’s missing out on half her life, so something needs to change. “Maybe?”

Maybe not photography, though. She honestly has no idea what exactly she wants, only that she wants to add something to her life. So far, whenever she felt like that, she just adopted another cat, but three cats are enough, and it was never about the cats to begin with.

“Hey, whatever you wanna do, I totally support that. If I get to play football with the guys, you get to…” Jamie shrugs. “Well, you’ll figure it out. Never too late to learn something new, right?”

“Right,” Ashley says and gives him a tight hug.

Jamie holds her for a moment, chin on top of her head, until he suddenly jerks upright. “Oh…”

“Did we miss it?”

Jamie checks his phone again. “Yep, we missed it. Only by a minute, though.”

“Okay, quick, kiss me so we can go back inside.”

Jamie laughs and leans down to give her the quickest kiss of all time. They can always keep going once they’re not out in the cold anymore.

*

It’s seven minutes past midnight and Nadira is pretty much ready to go to bed.

She misses New York tonight. She misses Dee. She misses living in the city. She even misses all the things she hated about the city. That stupidly expensive apartment and the weird neighbors and the absolute nightmare that was finding a parking spot.

At least this year she got to hug like three different hockey teams at midnight. Hanging out with the Panthers is just a thing that she does at this point, but hanging out with the Cardinals still blows her mind a little bit.

“Seriously, though, where’s Jack?” Mateo says.

Nadira frowns. She is beyond tipsy, but she’s pretty sure that no one here is called Jack. “Who’s Jack?”

“Andy,” Mateo says.

“Andy is Jack?”

“Yeah.” Ryan grins. “Ten bucks says that he’s making out with Finn in a dark corner somewhere.”

“Please. He’s way too busy being a huge wuss.”

Sarah smirks and grabs a bottle of tequila. She glances over at Nadira for a moment before she turns away in search of shot glasses. Sarah looks like she’s having a less than stellar evening, although Nadira isn’t quite sure why. Well. It’s midnight on New Year’s Eve. Watching people make out whilst being part of the Sad & Single club isn’t that much fun.

Nadira nods at the tequila. “I’ll have another one.”

Sarah pours her one and hands it over. In return, Nadira blows her a kiss and grabs her phone to send Dee a text to tell her how much he misses her, only to find a text from Dee, telling her the exact same thing.

“Why are you making the face you’re making?” Connor asks.

“Where did you come from?”

“I just did a photoshoot with Santa, because he wanted a picture of me kissing him for Instagram. He’s doing one with Nick now,” Connor says, absolutely deadpan. “Also Wilder says hi.”

“Aw, I love Wilder,” Nadira coos. She turns around to find Santa and Nick. Bee is indeed taking pictures of Santa kissing Nick’s cheek. The journalist in her almost wants to snap a picture herself, but she doesn’t want to risk not getting invited to these things anymore if the guys feel like they can’t trust her.

“I know, me too,” Connor says, pats her head and walks away with a, “I gotta find Alex.”

Nadira gently takes the bottle of tequila away from Sarah and pours herself another one. She’ll sleep right here on this barstool. It’s all good.

*

“Alex,” Connor says and wraps his arms tightly around Alex.

Alex pats Connor’s arm. “Connor.”

“I won’t wish you a happy you-know-what,” Connor whispers, “because I know you don’t want everyone to know that it’s your you-know-what and you want to keep things lowkey and I respect that, I really do–”

“Thanks,” Alex says, biting down a smile. He’s never seen Connor this drunk before. It appears that Connor just turns into a big teddy bear who wants to hug everyone when he’s drunk.

“–and I think you should know,” Connor goes on, “that I want you to be happy, because that’s the point when it’s your… you-know-what. Also, I think you should know that I bought you a really big white chocolate raspberry cheesecake that’s in the second fridge and you don’t have to eat it, but I know you like cake and I want you to be happy.”

Alex doesn’t really know what to say to that, so he just hugs Connor back and says, “Thank you,” one more time.

“Are we hugging Alex?”

Alex looks around just in time to see that he’s about to be sandwiched between Finn and Connor.

“We’re hugging Alex,” Connor says and somehow manages to wrap his arms around both Alex and Finn.

“Okay… guys…”

Connor laughs and lets go of him. “Happy you-know-what,” he whispers and sneaks off, probably to give someone else a bear hug.

“Yeah,” Finn says, still hugging Alex from behind, “happy you-know-what.”

“Thanks.”

Finn lets go of him enough so Alex can turn around and actually look at him. “Alex,” Finn says, “I just kissed a boy in your hallway.”

“No way,” Alex says. “Who’d you kiss?”

“Shut up.”

Alex laughs and gives Finn’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’m glad you figured that out.”

“Yeah, me too.” Finn leans closer, wiggling his eyebrows. “Saw you and Nick Rivera in the hallway. Could be that you guys actually had a civil conversation?”

“Possibly.”

“Look at you, starting the year the right way. Behaving like a grown-up and shit.” Finn ruffles his hair. “We should drink on that.”

“We should,” Alex agrees.

“Let me get my boy, he should drink with us.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and gives Finn a pat on the back as he flits away to find Andy.

Finn is barely gone when Ashley replaces him, arms wrapped around Alex waist. “Hey you.”

“Hey,” Alex says. “Where did you sneak off to?”

“Some romantic kiss under the stars crap.” Ashley reaches up to tap Alex’s cheek with freezing cold fingers. “It was a bad choice.”

“Aw,” Alex says and gives her a squeeze.

Ashley quietly wishes him a happy birthday and then leaves him be, which he’s actually grateful for. Nadira came over to give him a hug right at midnight, then followed Sarah, then Nick, who’d been sitting next to him, waiting patiently for his turn.

Alex appreciates that they all let him be weird about his birthday and never ask why. He just doesn’t want it to be a big deal, he doesn’t want the entire day to revolve around him. He doesn’t want a constant reminder.

Because when he thinks about his birthday, he thinks of a raucous party in a house off campus, he thinks about drinking too much, about stumbling outside for a breath of fresh air. He still remembers the snow on the ground, the biting cold air, remembers the touch of warm fingers against the small of his back.

He remembers a quiet and soft, “It’s midnight,” and an even softer, “Happy birthday.”

Six years ago, a few seconds past midnight, Alex Goldman fell a little bit in love on a snow-covered back porch when a boy gave him a birthday kiss. That kiss changed everything for him, and it’s still with him in some ways.

When he thinks about it now, it’s not so much about the boy, or the kiss, and more about how easy and how right it felt, even though they weren’t in a position where it should have felt easy or right.

He misses that feeling and he’s scared that he’ll never find it again.

“Hey.”

Alex jumps when Nick steps up to him. “Hey,” he says.

“You okay?” Nick asks.

He’s probably asking because of earlier, when Alex snuck off because he needed a minute to get it together. Alex nods. He’s almost glad when Nick sits down next to him again, like he did earlier in the kitchen.

Someone’s put on Queen, and Connor and Santa are singing along. Finn and Andy have ended up on a couch, attached by the lips, entirely unconcerned about the people around them.

Part of Alex wishes he could be like that.

He glances at Nick. They’re not in the same boat. Not anymore. Nick still has everything to lose. Alex doesn’t. He can be whoever he wants to be. He can do whatever he wants to do. His career isn’t on the line. Really, what’s the worst thing that could happen if he just told people?

Maybe it’s time now. Time to change things.

The thing is, he already knows that this feeling doesn’t last. It’s this New Year’s Eve thing that makes you think you’ll turn your entire life around, but you won’t. All that ambition, all that clarity, it’s so hard to hold on to.

When Alex goes to bed tonight, he’ll still wonder if this is the year that everything changes. When he gets up tomorrow morning, though, he’ll still be the same old Alex. That’s just the way it is.


	47. confessions, Chapter 9.6

**confessions**

 

**Chapter 9.6**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

pancakes <3

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Joining us for tonight’s game against the Falcons? Retweet for a chance to win a selfie with a player! #HappyNewYear #GoCardsGo

*

When Nadira finally stirs, Sarah is already wide awake. She’s probably been wide awake since, like, six in the morning. She’s not a hundred percent sure, but it was dark when she woke up and it’s not dark anymore.

She’s been thinking. About what she’s going to say to Nadira. If she should say anything at all.

Sarah isn’t good at math, so she hasn’t figured out her chance of success yet, but her options aren’t exactly plentiful. Option Number One, is what is generally regarded as The Easy Way Out. She’ll say nothing. She’ll keep having a crush on Nadi. She’ll hate herself a little bit for not saying anything. And she’ll keep doing that until the crush goes away, or until she talks herself into saying something after all. And then there’s Option Number Two, which is Being Brave And Talking About Her Feelings.

Sarah isn’t feeling particularly brave on this fine morning. But it’s a new year and this is exactly what those are for, right?

So she’ll say something. The problem is that she has no idea what she’ll say, but at this point she’s convinced that Nadira has been flirting with her. At least a little bit. So they should talk. Right?

Right.

Nadira blinks at her when she wakes up, smiling before she pulls up the sheets and hides her face. “Ugh.”

“I know, right?” Sarah mumbles. Her guess is that she slept for about three hours, which means she’ll go straight back to bed as soon as she’s home. No work today. No practice. Just a day off.

Part of her has already come up with an elaborate fantasy, in which she tells Nadira how much she wanted to kiss her at midnight and how much she regrets that she didn’t do it. And then Nadira says something like, “I wish you’d kissed me,” and then Sarah says something ridiculously cheesy like, “Well, maybe it’s not too late to kiss you?” And then Nadira leans in and they kiss passionately and they don’t leave this bed all day and it’s beautiful.

That’s the dream. The ideal.

“If we’re very, very lucky,” Nadira says and reappears from under the covers, “Alex is already awake and making breakfast.”

“Breakfast sounds excellent,” Sarah says.

Neither of them moves to investigate if there is indeed a chance of breakfast, though.

“I’ll move,” Nadira says, grinning. “I swear, I will.”

Sarah laughs and stretches. “Yeah. Same.”

Nadira is still smiling, but she’s also still looking cozy, so they’re likely not going anywhere immediately. Which means now would be a good time to say something. About last night.

Sarah clears her throat. “Nadi?”

“Yeah?” Nadira says. “I didn’t kick you last night, did I?”

“No, you didn’t, don’t worry.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you have a sleeping bag, otherwise I totally would have come for your sheets,” Nadira says with a wink.

She’s so cute and Sarah already feels like she’ll spontaneously combust. “Nadi,” Sarah says again. “I need to tell you something.”

“Oh,” Nadira says. “Okay?”

Now they’re at the point where Sarah wonders if she should make up something else, anything else, so she doesn’t have to tell the truth, but that’s not what she’s going to do. Because she’s a grown-up and she’ll act like one. She can do this. She gathers up every scrap of courage she can find in herself and says, “I sort of wanted to kiss you last night.”

For a moment, Nadira doesn’t say anything. She only stares. Then she says, “Oh.” And… she looks sort of panicked.

_Shit_. That was not party of the plan.

Sarah needs to backpaddle. Fast. “The thing is…” she says. Yeah. What is the thing? “I don’t know. I mean. See, I like you–”

That definitely didn’t make things better.

“–but we’re also friends. And I don’t want that to change. And, you know, maybe I’m not ready to kiss anyone just yet. And I probably… just shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Oh,” Nadira says again. “I mean…” She takes a deep breath and sits up.

Sarah does as well, not sure if she should backpaddle a little more just to be safe. “I’m sorry,” she eventually says.

“No, I’m sorry, like, I didn’t– Did I give you the wrong idea or anything? Because if I did I’m really, really sorry… You know, there’s so much going on at work and…” Nadira makes a face. “Shit, Sarah, you’re so cute and it would have been an honor to be kissed by you, but yeah, I guess it’s just not the right time for either of us, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says. This isn’t going well. At all.

“Aw, honey, come here,” Nadira says and wraps her arms around Sarah. “We’ll always be friends, I promise. And, hey, maybe things will change, but–”

“It’s okay,” Sarah interrupts. They really don’t need to get into this. Nadira wants to focus on her career and that’s that. And Sarah basically just told her that she’s not even ready for a relationship, so she’s off the hook, no harm done, everything’s fine and– Yeah, Sarah kinda really wants to go home.

“Okay,” Nadira says. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Sarah says. She wiggles out of her sleeping bag and starts rolling it up. “So, do you really think there’s a chance of pancakes?”

Nadira suddenly looks a lot happier. “Yeah, let’s investigate the pancake situation.” Before Sarah can flee the room, Nadira grabs her by the wrist. “Sarah…”

“Yeah?”

“We’re okay, right?”

Sarah nods. “Oh, we totally are.”

“Okay, good.” Nadira lets out a deep breath. “Good.”

Yeah. Right. It’s all good.

*

Being on the road as much as he is, Nick is used to waking up in rooms that aren’t his own, but the one he wakes up in this morning doesn’t have the generic hotel room layout. There’s also no Connor snoring in the other bed. In fact, there is no other bed at all. Actually, he’s not sleeping in a bed either. He’s on a couch. An extremely soft leather couch that he’s sunken into during the night.

Right. He spent the night at Alex’s house, in the downstairs office behind a desk and between walls lined with bookshelves.

Bee, Santa and Willie offered to give him a ride home last night, but then his car would have still been here and he’s very secretly hoping that he might get another quiet minute with Alex, just to make sure that they’re okay now. Or at least okay-er than they were before they talked last night.

Nick somehow makes it off the couch, even though it’s doing its best to eat him alive. He grabs the blanket that Alex handed him last night and folds it as he wanders down the hall. He checks his phone for the time – 9:23 AM. Morning skate’s at 11:30 today and he doesn’t need to be at the rink earlier than that today, so he has plenty of time, but he feels like he’s going to need an extra-long pre-game nap tonight.

The smell of something cooking lures him into the kitchen, where Alex is standing behind the stove, flipping pancakes in a faded  _Star Wars_  shirt and flannel pajama pants. His hair is sticking up and his glasses have slid down to the tip of his nose.

“Hey,” Alex says when he spots him, pushing his glasses up with the back of his hand. “Pancakes?”

“You’re seriously making pancakes for everyone who stayed the night?”

“It’s not too many people, honestly,” Alex says with a shrug. “Connor, Nadi and I, and then you, Sass, Nessie, and Finn and Andy. Ashley and Jamie left pretty early, because of some family thing, Ryan and Mateo left about fifteen minutes ago, and they took Riley because he didn’t want to wait for Andy, so… yeah. How was the couch?”

“The couch tried to eat me.”

“Yeah, it does that.” Alex grabs a plate, still the Disney ones from last night, and puts a neat stack of pancakes on it. “Here. There’s maple syrup on the table. Waldo brought it from Montreal.”

“Thanks,” Nick says and reluctantly takes the plate. “Hey, Alex…”

“Yeah?”

“About yesterday… I’m… I’m really sorry I was such a bad friend. I didn’t even– I didn’t get it back then.”

“Well, you get it now.” Alex stares down at the pancake batter. “And I get it now, too. I mean, maybe I should have given you a chance to talk to me sooner, you know, that was totally an option, but I was kinda busy being…” He shrugs.

“Grumpy?”

Alex smirks. “Shut up and eat your pancakes.”

Nick takes his pancakes over to the table and sits down. “So,” he says, “how have you been?”

“Really? We’re doing that?”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve had a normal conversation since I came back here,” Nick says. “So?”

“So… Things have been good. I guess.”

“You guess?”

Alex huffs. “Well, you know, other than the car accident and the never playing hockey again.”

“Yeah,” Nick says, unfazed, “that kinda sucks, doesn’t it?” He doesn’t apologize for bringing it up. Alex doesn’t need a pity party.

Alex looks up, actually looking vaguely amused. “Yeah, it kinda sucks.”

“But you have the rink,” Nick says.

“That’s right, I have the rink.”

The thing is, Nick isn’t sure if Alex wants the rink. No, actually, Alex does want the rink, he clearly loves the place, but Nick isn’t sure if the rink is really enough for Alex in the long run.

Nick hums and turns his attention back to his pancakes.

“Oh, so I have to talk about how I’ve been, but you don’t?” Alex asks.

“Well, I…” Nick shrugs. He doesn’t like the territory they’re moving into, because he doesn’t want Alex to feel bad. It’s a fine line between  _what happened to you suck_ s and  _oh, look at all these things I’ve done that you’ll never get a chance to do_.

Alex raises his eyebrows at him. “Well?” he says. “Go on, tell me.”

Nick chews on his bottom lip. There’s this one thing that he’s always wanted to talk to Alex about, that one thing they dreamed about when they were kids. He takes a deep breath. “I won the Cup.”

“I know,” Alex says, and his smile is soft. “That was pretty cool.”

“Yeah. Pretty cool.”

“I–”

“Pancakes!”

“Hey, Waldo,” Nick says.

“Hey.” Connor wraps his arms around Alex. “Heeeey.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and pats Connor’s arm. “Hey.”

“I love you, you’re the best.”

“Okay, but you need to let go of me,” Alex says, “I need to flip these.”

“Everything for you,” Connor says and steals a pancake of the plate next to the stove before he flops down next to Nick. “Hey, you wanna give me a ride to morning skate?”

“Sure, I just need to grab my gear at my house.”

“Falcons tonight, huh?” Alex says.

“Yep.”

“They’ve been pretty good this season.” Alex stacks a few more pancakes on a plate and hands it to Connor. “Signing Burke really worked for them.”

“Burke is big and scary,” Connor mutters.

Nick can’t help but laugh. Connor is one of the biggest guys on the team, he might even have an inch on Burke.

“Meanie,” Connor whispers to him and grabs the maple syrup to poor a ridiculous amount on the one pancake he’s holding. He’s using his hand as a plate.

“Hey, Alex?”

Alex is pouring pancake batter again, so it takes him a moment to say, “Yeah?”

“You wanna come to the game tonight?” Nick asks. “I can get you a ticket. Or several.”

Connor freezes with a bite of pancake halfway to his mouth.

“Oh,” Alex says, “uh…”

“It wouldn’t be a birthday present,” Nick says. “Just… you know. Might be fun. Maybe Waldo’s gonna fight Burke.”

Alex snorts. “I’ll come, but only if Waldo promises that he won’t fight Burke. Dude, I actually want you to stay alive.”

“I’ll do my best,” Connor says.

“All right.”

“You’re coming?” Connor asks.

Alex shrugs. “Guess I am.” He looks away when Nadira and Sarah come into the kitchen, both of them still slightly rumpled. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Sarah says, her smile tight as she sits down next to Connor.

“Yeah,” Nadira says and gets herself a cup of coffee, “hey.”

Something doesn’t seem right. Maybe Sarah and Nadira are just hungover, but they sort of seem a little subdued, both of them. Alex is frowning, too, so there’s a chance that Nick is on to something here.

“Do you guys wanna go to the game tonight?” Alex asks.

Nadira stares at Alex. “Do we want to go?” Her eyes flicker to Sarah, then back to Alex. “As in…  _we_?”

Connor shrugs. “We can get you all tickets.”

“Yeah,” Nick confirms. He isn’t usually one to pull those strings too often, but it’s definitely not a problem.

“Uhh…”

“I can’t,” Sarah says. She clears her throat. “I… already… have plans.”

“Oh,” Nadira says. “Well, I’d love to go.”

“Cool,” Connor says and holds up his fist for Nadira to bump.

Nadira does, her eyes going back to Sarah, who suddenly seems to be very interested in her phone.

“Okay, then…” Alex says and sets down another plate stacked with pancakes down on the kitchen table.

Nick shoots him a look.  _What’s going on?_

Alex makes a face that clearly says, _I don’t have the faintest idea, but something definitely_ is _going on._

The awkward silence that ensues is finally broken up when Byron comes into the kitchen and drops a purple dragon at Nick’s feet, tail wagging.

“Oh, hey,” Nick says and picks up the dragon.

“Wait, don’t move,” Connor says, reaching for his phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just breaking the internet, because local hottie Nick Rivera is playing with the cutest dog ever and I’m here to document it.”

Nick can’t help but laugh.

“You know, the guys would love it if we brought Byron to the rink,” Connor says “I’m pretty sure that loads of the guys will be bringing their kids today.”

Alex rolls his eyes at him. “Get your own dog.”

“Please?”

Connor’s puppy eyes are almost as convincing as Byron’s. Honestly, everyone at the rink always loses it when someone brings a dog, it’s like you’re walking in there with the Holy Grail.

“Please,” Nick also says.

Shaking his head, Alex says, “Fine.”

Nick smiles at him. And, without missing a beat, Alex smiles back at him.


	48. bye week, Chapter 10.1

**bye week**

 

**Chapter 10.1**

 

*****

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Like sure I want my favorite players to get some rest but no hockey for a week? That’s just mean??

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I’m glad that at least the @panthersNWHL still love me

*

“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.”

“What exactly… is it,” Connor swallows his last spoonful of cereal, “that I’m doing to you?

“You’re leaving?” Nadira says.

“Yeah,” Connor says, his grin broad. “So?”

“No hockey?”

Connor shrugs. “We’re not the only hockey team in the world.”

“Yeah, okay,” Nadira says, “but the Ravens’ bye week starts two days from now and then I’m in a hockey-less wasteland until the 18th.”

“You’ll survive,” Connor says and pats Nadira’s head. “I’ll send you pics from the Bahamas.”

“Thank you ever so much,” Nadira grumbles. She doesn’t feel quite as grumbly anymore when Connor pulls her into a tight hug.

She’s pretty much been in a horrible mood ever since New Year’s Eve because… well…  _because_. That thing with Sarah just totally threw her off. She didn’t see it coming and she keeps thinking that maybe she should have. Nadira is usually better at noticing The Signs.

Anyway, she’s a horrible person. And that’s all there is to it.

“I’ll miss you,” Nadira says and pats Connor’s biceps. There are people who’d murder to get to do this.

“What are you smirking about?”

Nadira shrugs. It’s probably weird if she answers that question with,  _Your biceps_. “Have fun with the boys.”

“I will.” Connor lets go of her and looks around the kitchen. “Where’s Alex?”

“He was just here.”

“Alex??”

Alex comes sliding into the kitchen on socked feet, eyes wide. “Everything okay?”

“I need to say goodbye,” Connor says and wraps his arms around Alex. “Make sure that Nadi gets to watch some hockey, okay?”

“Sure, I’ll put on a nice Grizzlies game for her.”

“Ugh, I  _hate_  the Grizzles,” Nadira grumbles. She doesn’t even hate them that much, because they have some decent guys on their team, but they’re not the Cardinals, and they’re not the Ravens, so she’s contractually obliged to at least dislike them a little bit. She pours herself some more coffee and sits down at the kitchen island to sulk.

Connor is still hugging Alex. “It’s not too late to come along.”

“Oh, please,” Alex says.

“Okay, maybe it is a little too late.”

Alex laughs and slowly extracts himself from Connor’s arms. “Don’t forget to say goodbye to Byron.”

“I just did,” Connor says, scratching the back of his head. “For like fifteen minutes.” He gives Alex a nudge. “Hey, send me dog pics every now and then, okay?”

“I’ll do my best,” Alex says.

“Seriously, I…” Connor trails off when Byron starts barking. A moment later a car honks outside. “That’s my ride. Bye, babes!”

“Bye,” Alex says and follows him out the door.

Nadira only waves and briefly wonders if drowning herself in her coffee cup would be better than going to work. Since the Cardinals aren’t playing this week, Brad is likely going to be extra unbearable. The only good thing is that Nadira actually has the weekend off because the Panthers are out of town and there’s very little for them to report on.

She’s put together a few articles about the upcoming Olympics, but most of them are on their women’s team and Brad isn’t exactly eager to publish them. In any case, Nadira will cover a charity basketball game at a local high school tonight and then she’s going to enjoy her weekend off.

Alex joins her in the kitchen a moment later, Byron at his heels. He starts making tea, humming softly. There’s something different about him and Nadira can’t figure out what it is.

“You’re staring at me,” Alex says eventually.

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Something’s…” Nadira narrows her eyes at him. “Look at me.”

Alex pushes his glasses up his nose and looks around.

“Oh!” Now she sees it. “You shaved.”

“I do that occasionally, yeah.”

“No, you  _trim_. You don’t shave.”

Alex shrugs and turns back to his tea. “Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”

It really isn’t, but he still looks strange to Nadira.

They both hang out in the kitchen for a little while, Nadira sipping her coffee, Alex waiting for his tea to cool down a little, digging through the fridge, adding a few things to the shopping list.

“Alex,” Nadira finally says.

Alex quickly appears from behind the fridge door. “Yeah? Do you need more ice cream?”

“No,” Nadira says. “Actually… yes. Any kind with chocolate.”

Alex nods and puts it on the list.

“But that wasn’t– Alex.”

He closes the fridge, a frown on his face. “Everything okay?”

“No. Yes. I have… issues.” Nadira makes a face. She doesn’t want to pull Alex into this, but she needs to talk to someone and, well, she did talk to Dee the other day, but Dee has never met Nadira’s friends here in Cedar Mills, so she sort of has a limited perspective. “Can you keep a secret?”

Alex comes over and leans against the counter. “Sure. What’s wrong?”

“Okay, so… let’s say there’s a girl, yeah? And she’s… you know, playing in my league. Well, in several leagues, but one of them is my league. The ladies’ league.”

Alex hums.

“And, you know me, you know how much I like girls. Girls are great. Beautiful.”

“Right,” Alex says.

“So, that girl, she likes me. I  _know_  that she likes me.” Nadira takes a deep breath. She needs to get to the point, because they both need to go to work in a bit and she doesn’t want to make this unnecessarily difficult. “She  _told_  me that she likes me.”

“But you don’t like her?” Alex asks.

“No, that’s not– I don’t know, actually. Maybe I like her.”

“So the problem is that you don’t know if you like her?”

“The problem is…” Nadira clears her throat. “Okay, so, she said she likes me, but she was in a pretty serious relationship not too long ago and she’s not sure if she’s ready to be with someone else. Which is, you know… totally understandable. The thing is, I didn’t really notice that she likes me? And I feel bad and I sort of turned her down, because I have work, like, I’m trying to…” She shakes her head. At this point, she’s not even sure what she’s trying to do anymore. Does she want to get out of here? Does she just want a different job? She’s not unhappy here. She’s just unhappy with her job. And with her boss.

“You want to focus on work?” Alex prompts.

“Yeah. But… this is the big  _but_ … Ever since she told me, I keep thinking about her. I mean, she is… wow. So amazing. I didn’t even consider that she’d ever be interested in me.”

“I see,” Alex says.

“And, the thing is, you definitely can’t help me with this,” Nadira says. “I just wanted to talk about it.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Alex gives her a nudge. “So what are you going to do?”

“Um, be confused?”

“And then?”

“Cry?” Nadira says. “I don’t know. What if I can have both? What if I can work hard  _and_  have a love life?”

Alex shoots her a small smile. “Maybe it’s worth giving it a try.”

“Maybe,” Nadira says. “I’m just having a bad morning. Or a bad day. Or maybe a bad week. Possibly a bad month.”

“Do you want me to make cookies for you when I get home tonight?” Alex asks.

“You’re so awesome, I don’t deserve you,” Nadira says. “Although… I’ve been thinking, maybe I should do something this weekend. Something fun.”

Alex grins. “Like… the Bahamas?”

“Yeah, as if I could ever afford that,” Nadira mutters. “But…” But she misses the city and the Panthers are playing against the Blaze on Saturday afternoon. She could go to the game. And pay Dee a visit. Go out. Have fun. “Oh, I have an idea.”

“Do you,” Alex says, clearly wary.

“What if we go to New York tomorrow?” Nadira says. “We can watch Sarah play and then we can spend the night in the city, have some fun…”

“I have to–”

“Close up the rink? Find someone else to do it. Come on, Alex.”

Alex huffs. “I can’t just leave for two days.”

“Dude, everyone deserves a day off every now and then.”

“Okay, but–”

“Just ask around and see if anyone can take over for you this weekend. You’re usually not even there on Sunday morning. We can be back by Sunday afternoon.”

Alex, already with his phone in hand, says, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Okay, but don’t ask Ashley, because I want her to come, too.”

“I actually do have to be at the rink on Sunday morning, I think,” Alex mumbles. “Nick is coming by and I need to make sure that no one bugs him.”

“Well, let’s take Nick to New York. Problem solved.”

Alex laughs and shakes his head. “I’ll talk to Finn. He owes me several favors.”

“Let me know as soon as you can,” Nadira shouts. “I’ll give Ashley a call.”

Maybe Nadira is imagining things because she’s so excited, but she’s pretty sure that Alex is smiling when he walks out the door.

*

Nick’s car is already at the rink when Alex arrives. It’s Friday, so Alex will be here until the place closes at ten after the disco skate. Fridays are usually busy in the afternoon and in the evening, not so much in the morning, though.

Nick has booked ice time every day throughout the Cardinals’ bye week and Alex told him around what time he usually gets to the rink, so Nick is clearly waiting to get started.

Alex gets out of the car with a sigh, lets Byron jump out of the back and makes for the front door, keys already in hand. Byron doesn’t follow him like he usually does but instead goes over to Nick’s car to say hello while Nick gets his equipment bag out of the trunk.

“Make sure he comes inside with you, okay?” Alex calls to Nick and then ducks inside to get everything ready for the day.

When he returns from downstairs to make sure the ice is in good condition, Maureen, who’s in charge of concessions during the week, has already opened the stall and Nick and Ashley are chatting by the front office, with Nick absent-mindedly stroking Byron’s ears.

“Hey, Alex,” Ashley says, “I hear we’re going to New York tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that,” Alex says.

“Why? I already asked May, she’ll take over my afternoon shift, and Finn will be here until six anyway, so if he can stay just a little while longer and close up for you–”

Alex purses his lips. “Well, I don’t know about that yet.”

“I have a list of seven other people who could close up for you just in case Finn doesn’t have time.”

“I’m glad you have it all figured out,” Alex says. He just hates leaving the rink with someone else. If something goes wrong and he’s in New York, there’s nothing he can do about it and he doesn’t like the thought of that. A voice in his head that sounds a lot like Finn whispers,  _Someone’s being a little control freak_. Alex sighs. “We’ll see.”

“What are you doing in New York?” Nick asks.

“Going to one of Sarah’s games,” Ashley says, her smile bright. “So we’re going to Brooklyn in the afternoon and then we’re spending the night somewhere in the city. Nadira said we might be able to crash with a friend of hers.”

“Nah, I’ll just give my uncle a call,” Alex says.

Ashley waggles her eyebrows. “Your super rich New York City uncle?”

“Yeah. The one who owns several hotels. One of which is in the city.”

“ _Nice_.”

Alex shrugs. He likes his uncle Theo, but they aren’t really in touch. Theo is a generous guy, though, so if Alex gives him a call and asks if he can get them two rooms, it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

“Sounds good,” Nick says. “Have fun. Do you mind if I head downstairs? I know you’re technically not open yet, but…”

“Whatever,” Alex says and unlocks the front office.

Byron, for a moment, looks unsure whether he wants to follow the guy who’s been petting him or lie down on his cushion in the office. He eventually picks the cushion once Nick is out of sight.

Finn shows up with a gigantic Starbucks cup about two minutes later. “I’ve seen your text, but I wasn’t awake enough to buy coffee  _and_  reply to you, so… Anyway. It’s all good, I got you, babe.”

“You can be here all weekend?”

“For sure,” Finn says. “Go to New York. Have fun.” He leans closer, sticking his head into the office through the window. “Kiss a cute boy.”

Alex laughs.

“I’m serious. Kiss a cute boy, Alexander.”

“Finn.”

Finn reaches out to boop Alex’s nose. “Live a little.”

Alex shoos him away and leaves the front office to make sure everyone is where they’re supposed to be. They usually are; his people are reliable. As soon as the rink is open, several people arrive for the figure skating session – Finn’s teaching a group class and Alex is sure that there are some other lessons going on as well. He knows the instructors, but he has nothing to do with their schedules. Unless it’s Finn and Ashley, but those two actually work for him and he spends some time every week arranging their work schedules so they won’t get in the way of the lessons they teach.

He makes a couple of phone calls, including one to his Uncle Theo, who’s absolutely delighted to hear from him, then he organizes a skating party and has a lengthy conversation with a mom whose kid wants to start playing hockey. He’s answering emails when Nick appears at the window.

“Hey,” Alex says. “Heading out?”

“Yeah.” Nick tilts his head and grins. “You look different.”

Alex only glares at him in reply.

“Anyway,” Nick says. He pauses, then he adds, “The Sailors lost last night. 7-2. Did you see?”

“I saw,” Alex says and he shouldn’t feel so gleeful, but the Sailors have been winning game after game and they’ll likely clinch a playoff spot again this season, so he doesn’t feel  _that_  bad. “Lions lost against the Seals, too.”

“Yeah, the games against San Diego were never pretty,” Nick says.

Alex nods. He remembers that game when one of the Seals ran Nick into the boards and he got pulled from the game with a concussion. Alex wasn’t watching, but it was all over the internet for days. Nick never saw the guy coming. “Yeah,” Alex says. “It’s like there’s at least one guy who walks out injured after every Seals game.”

“Tell me about it,” Nick says.

“How bad was it really?” Alex asks. “Your concussion?”

Nick stares at him for a moment and Alex fully expects him to tell him that it’s none of his business, but then Nick only shrugs. “They didn’t force me back or anything. Although… I don’t know. You can tell when people are starting to get impatient. I guess I was lucky that it was only a mild concussion.”

“You were,” Alex says. He has so many questions that he wants to ask Nick – about his first year in the league, about winning the Cup, about getting traded – but he doesn’t feel like they’re ready for that yet. Connor has been bringing Nick over a lot last week once they were back from their roadie and Alex didn’t feel like he needed to hide somewhere. They’re trying to be friends. Tentatively. He’ll get to ask his questions eventually.

“Anyway,” Nick says. “Thanks again. I’ll, uh… Well, I suppose I won’t see you tomorrow.”

“Probably not. Finn will be here, though, he’ll make sure that no one bothers you.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” Nick smiles. “I’m sure watching Sarah play will be fun. I should try to catch one of her games soon.”

“Yeah. Maybe you should come.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “Do you want to?” Honestly, he admires how hard Nick is working. Most of the Cardinals are off to the beach and Nick is still here, the rink booked for a session every day. Everyone needs a break sometimes, though. Even Nick Rivera.

“I…” Nick stares down at his equipment bag. “I mean… yeah. I’d love to come. Would that be okay?”

Two weeks ago, Alex wouldn’t have wanted Nick to tag along, but now things are different. They’ve made peace. Nick came to his house and ate all his leftover food three days ago and Alex was perfectly okay with it. What happened all those years ago is in the past; Alex promised himself that he wouldn’t hold it against Nick anymore.

“Yeah,” Alex says, “that would be okay.”


	49. bye week, Chapter 10.2

**bye week**

 

**Chapter 10.2**

 

*

**Hartford Panthers** @panthersNWHL

Lots of Panthers fans in the crowd here in Brooklyn #LetsGoPanthers

*

“Are we in the right place?” Nadira asks.

Ashley gently puts a hand on her back. “Nadi, honey, haven’t you been here before?”

Nadira groans and then looks over her shoulder.

Ashley follows her gaze, finding Alex and Nick behind them, both of them looking at something on Nick’s phone, laughing. Ashley is glad that they seem to be getting along – she was honestly a little worried when Nadira mentioned that Nick was coming as well.

Alex didn’t tell her what the whole Nick Rivera situation was all about. And she’s not mad or anything, because, sure, they’ve been friends for a long, long time, but it’s not like Alex has to tell her  _everything_. She often feels like Alex is never completely honest with her. The thing is, she can’t think of a single person that Alex might have ever been completely honest with. Maybe Finn. Ashley asked him once if he knew what was up with Alex and Nick, and Finn clearly had no idea. His eye twitches when he lies, so Ashley is pretty confident that he was telling the truth.

“Can they hurry up just a little bit?” Nadira grumbles.

“Our driver said it was right down the block.”

“It  _is_  right down the block,” Nadira says. “Still.”

“Well, they’ll catch up,” Ashley says, biting back a smile. It’s adorable how excited Nadira is about this.

She’s wearing her Albright jersey and a Panthers baseball hat that looks like it’s seen better days. Ashley is wearing the shirt Jamie bought her when they went to a Panthers game two years ago and Alex has a beanie with the logo on it. He also threw a Panthers baseball hat at Nick when he got into the car and Ashley is starting to suspect that he has a secret stash of hockey merch hidden somewhere.

Nadira drove them down here, cursing at pretty much every car they came across – and that was a lot of cars – and at the hotel a valet took care of their car. The hotel manager greeted them personally and took them up to their rooms. Ashely is sharing a room with Nadira, and the boys are in the room next door, and they have a huge bed each and there’s TVs and the wallpaper looks like it cost more than Ashley’s entire house.

Alex’s uncle arranged for one of the hotel’s chauffeurs to take them to Brooklyn for the game and this whole experience is completely ridiculous to her, because technically Ashley knows that Alex’s family is rich – they have that huge house and they own the rink – but today is one of those days where it really hit her. And this is just his mom’s side of the family. His dad is a super-rich ex-hockey-player-now-successful-coach.

Ashley really has trouble wrapping her mind around that sometimes.

They arrive at the New York Blaze’s rink after a short walk and everyone going in is wearing red. Nadira makes a point in glaring at everyone as they wait for Nick and Alex to catch up.

Nick pulls down his baseball cap and Alex snorts.

“What, are you scared that someone will recognize you?”

Nick rolls his eyes and wordlessly takes one of the tickets that Nadira is handing out. Ashley isn’t sure who paid for them, but when she asked, “Okay, who gets the money for my ticket?” in the car, Nadira only shook her head and said, “Don’t worry about it,” with a quick nod at the backseat. Ashley assumes that either Nick or Alex paid for them.

It only takes about two minutes for someone to recognize Nick. It’s a teenage girl in a huge Panthers jersey. She asks Nick for a photo and then speed-walks away from them to catch up with a woman who’s likely her mom.

“Alex, can you, like, walk in front of Nick so no one else will stop you and we’ll actually make it down to the ice,” Nadira says and leads the way.

They’re pretty close to the glass and Nadira is bouncing up and down excitedly next to her. She obviously doesn’t get to go to games as a fan a lot, since she’s usually writing about them and interviewing the players and tweeting news.

Nick is staring at the ice like he wants to be down there, too. Alex is staring at Nick. Ashley gives him a shove.

“What?” Alex asks, clearly caught off guard.

“You wanna get a snack or something?”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Alex says and they go back up in search of hot dogs. Or pizza. Or nachos. Or… all of the above.

“So,” Ashley says as they get in line, “are you and Nick actually friends again?”

Alex shrugs.

“Because I remember that you weren’t so keen on even talking to him when he first came back home,” Ashley says. She’s not trying to be nosy, she just wants to know what the situation is.

“I guess we’re okay,” Alex says.

“Like, not that you have to tell me or anything, but what exactly happened there?”

“It’s a long story,” Alex mutters and then buys beer and hot dogs for all of them.

Ashley lets it go. She doesn’t need to know. But, boy, does she  _want_  to know.

When they make it back to Nadira and Nick, they’re talking to a woman who introduces herself as the Panthers’ social media manager. “Just saw that we had a special guest today,” she says, her eyes flitting to Nick.

“Yeah, I just told Zoe that we’re all here to support Sarah,” Nadira says and accepts a beer from Alex with a bright smile.

“Do you mind if I take a picture of you guys for our Twitter?” Zoe asks. “We do love getting some NHL support.”

“Oh, sure,” Nick says.

Two Blaze fans come over right after Zoe has moved on to ask for pictures with Nick.

“Someone’s popular,” Ashley says.

They’re probably lucky that they got here early. After the two Blaze fans are gone, no one else comes up to them before the game starts. Nadira is on her feet almost immediately when the Panthers take a hooking penalty less than a minute into the game.

“Bullshit,” she shouts.

Nick snorts. “It really was–”

Nadira gives him a shove. “Whose side are you on? Take that hat off right now if you’re gonna be like that.”

“I’m just saying–”

“ _No_.”

Alex laughs and pats Nick’s shoulder. “She’s always like that, just go with it.”

“Okay,” Nick says, ducks his head with a smile, and doesn’t say another word.

*

Sarah follows her teammates off the ice after a 4-0 victory, looking up at the crowd to see if she can spot Nadira, Ashley, Alex and Nick. Nadira sent her a text earlier to tell her they were coming and Sarah is pretty sure that she heard Nadira shouting in the second period when she made a damn good save.

She hasn’t made plans to meet her friends, but Nadira used to live here and she used to cover the Blaze, so she likely knows the way to the locker rooms.

Pattie hands her their cowboy hat that they pass around after games and Sarah bows to everyone. “Thanks guys,” she says. Sarah is quick to get out of her gear after the game – there’s a reporter from a local newspaper interviewing them and Sarah is extra pleasant today, because Emily tells her that she has friends waiting for her out in the hallway, “and one of them is Nick Rivera.”

When Sarah makes it out of the locker room, her friends are in the hallway, all in Panthers gear and Nadira is in a jersey that has Sarah’s name on the back and she holds out a black marker to her immediately. “Sarah! Sign my jersey.”

Sarah grabs the pen with a grin. “Of course.”

She loves signing stuff; it always makes her feel strangely giddy. She signs Ashley’s shirt and then sends her and Nadira into the locker room so they can have their stuff signed by the other girls.

“Will you sign this, too?” Alex says and pulls Nick’s baseball cap off his head.

“Sure,” Sarah says, mildly confused.

“It’s mine,” Alex explains. “I’m just letting Nick borrow it for the day.”

“Nick needs to get his own merch,” Sarah says.

Alex nods. “He does.”

“I will,” Nick says. “Actually, I’d love to talk to you about an idea I have about a summer hockey program. You know, for girls.”

“Oh,” Sarah says. She’s not gonna lie, she’s pleasantly surprised. She didn’t get the feeling that Nick cared all that much about women’s hockey. “Yeah, let’s talk about that sometime.”

Sarah has worked at a bunch of summer hockey camps, but it’s always a much bigger deal if a program like that has ties to the NHL somehow. Steph’s brother hosts a yearly hockey camp back in Minnesota every summer, too. Josh Roy supports a rink in Canada. Sarah isn’t sure if he actually owns the rink, or if he just provides some of their funding and drops by for a few skating sessions, but there’s pictures and videos of him on the ice with the kids every year.

Nadira and Ashley eventually return from the locker room, Nadira waving before she lets the door fall shut. “Holy shit, I love just being a fan. I mean, look at this.” She turns around and shows them her jersey that is now covered in signatures. “This is, like, the best day of my life.” She holds up her phone. “And now we have to take a selfie and I’m gonna post it everywhere, so if you don’t wanna be in it… leave.”

No one leaves and they all huddle together for a picture, then Zoe comes by, takes pity on them and snaps one for them so Nadira doesn’t have to figure out an angle where they all fit into the frame.

“Sass, I’m so proud of you,” Nadira says. “Second shutout in a row, yay!”

Sarah grins. “Thank you.” She’s so, so glad that Nadira isn’t being weird around her. Because of the New Year’s thing. That happened. She did that. And it was a terrible idea, she knows that now. Looks like they’re all good, though. “And thanks for coming. We could actually hear you on the ice.”

“Good,” Nadira says.

“You wanna go out for dinner with us tonight?” Alex asks.

“I actually need to head back to Hartford with the girls,” Sarah says. “Sorry, guys. Are you spending the night in the city?”

“Yeah, so apparently Alex here has an uncle who owns an actual hotel in Manhattan. And we get to stay there for free.”

“Nice,” Sarah says.

“It’s really not a big deal,” Alex says.

“Please, none of us could afford a room in that hotel in a million years,” Nadira says. “Actually, Nick, you could. Anyway. It’s awesome.”

“I’m glad you guys are having a good time,” Sarah says. “Well, get yourselves a nice dinner and I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

Nadira wraps an arm around her. “It’s too bad that you can’t come with us.”

“We’ll hang out next weekend. We can watch a game when the Cardinals are back.”

Nadira pats Nick’s arm. “Yay.”

Nick smiles, like he can’t wait to get back on the ice. Sarah knows the calendar at the rink; she’s seen that Nick has booked ice time over the entire bye week.

“Sarah?” someone calls from inside the locker room.

“Aw, crap, I really gotta go,” Sarah says and gives all of them a hug. “Thanks again for coming, it means a lot.”

“Of course,” Nadira says.

Sarah almost wants to hug her again. But she’s over that. Totally over that. No extra hugs. She’s going. She waves at them and runs into the locker room to gather up all her stuff.

Saila and Nessie have apparently already gotten started on that for her.

“Thanks, I love you both,” Sarah says and starts grabbing the rest of her gear.

“Everything for the MVP.”

“Oh, shush.”

“You aaaare,” Nessie says, beaming at her, and then starts singing ‘You’re The Inspiration.’ Saila and Steph join in immediately.

Sarah laughs. She’s so lucky that she ended up on a team with these girls.

*

“Okay, what’s the plan?”

“Hey, have you ever heard of… you know… knocking,” Alex says. His voice is muffled.

“Just for the record,” Ashley says, “I told her to knock. Because I wasn’t in the mood to see you naked.”

“Hey, I’m not in the mood to see him naked either,” Nadira grumbles.

Nick is in the bathroom, buck-naked and he only has a towel. He wasn’t really expecting the girls to show up just yet. They agreed that they’d all go back to the hotel, get ready and then head out for dinner and maybe drinks.

He grabs a towel, wraps it around his waist and slowly opens the bathroom door. Nadira and Ashley are both sitting on Alex’s bed. Alex’s hair is still a little wet, but other than that he looks like he’s ready to go. Nadira and Ashley are both wearing dresses and they both grin when Nick comes out of the bathroom.

“Oh,  _Nick_ ,” Nadira says, “that’s a nice towel.”

“A wonderful towel,” Ashley agrees.

Alex smirks.

Nick huffs at them and fishes a bunch of random clothes out of his bag before he ducks right back into the bathroom. Nick listens in as the others throw around a few ideas for dinner and joins the conversation as soon as he’s dressed.

“You know, that towel was a good look, I’m sure the ladies would have loved that,” Nadira says. “I’m not an expert on dudes in towels, but, you know…”

Nick ignores that and says, “I know a good place for dinner. We always go there when we’re in town for a game.”

Ashley clears her throat. “That place… is it for people who make a few million bucks a year?”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Nick says. He was assuming that he’d be the one paying for dinner anyway. Alex got them the hotel room and tickets for the game, Nadira drove them down here, Ashley paid for gas. They’re all chipping in somehow.

Ashley, for a second, looks like she wants to protest, but then Nadira reaches out and puts her hand over Ashley’s mouth. “Don’t. He’s offering. We’re saying yes.”

“Okay,” Ashley says and grins, “fine. I’m on board with whatever you guys wanna do.”

“Right, about that…” Nadira bats her eyelashes at all of them. “How about we go to a bar after dinner? Or maybe a club? Like, I’d totally go for a gay bar, but I’m not sure if you guys are a hundred percent on board with that?”

Nick clears his throat. “I’d rather not.”

“Right, I didn’t think about that, that’d start all sorts of stupid rumors.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. Stupid rumors.

He doesn’t miss the look Alex shoots him. Nick looks away. “Can we just go… somewhere else?”

“No worries, dude, I know a place,” Nadira says. “I used to live here. I know all the places.”


	50. bye week, Chapter 10.3

**bye week**

 

**Chapter 10.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

@ new york I missed u so much

*

Nick isn’t the kind of person who finds joy in going to nightclubs.

They’re loud and people are drunk and when he goes with his teammates, they never want to go home and try to get him to hook up with random girls. Or at least that’s how it worked when he still played for the Lions. With the Cardinals he gets to be boring. No one even expects him to go clubbing. Sometimes he’ll go to a bar with Yoshi and a bunch of the other guys when they’re on the road.

He hasn’t set foot in a club in a while, though.

Well. He’s in a club now.

They had drinks at a bar down the street, now they’re in a club that Nadira likes and they’ve found themselves a booth not too far away from the dancefloor. Ashley and Nadira are getting them drinks. Alex is sitting across from him, eyes on the dancefloor, his expression carefully neutral.

Nick isn’t sure if Alex is only here because he didn’t have the heart to tell Nadira that he didn’t want to go or if he actually doesn’t mind behind here. He doubts that they’ll see Alex on the dancefloor, but miracles do happen.

When Nadira and Sarah return they hand out drinks and scoot back into the booth with them.

“I talked to my friend Dee,” Nadira says. Loudly. Because nightclubs aren’t generally good places for conversations. That’s one reason why Nick hates them so much. “She might come by later.”

“Fun,” Ashley says, smiling broadly.

Alex frowns. “Did you guys–”

“Have shots at the bar?” Nadira says. “Why, yes, we did. We’re waaay ahead of you two, so you’d better catch up.”

Alex shakes his head at them and takes a sip of his drink.

“Yeeaaah, there you go,” Nadira says. “Okay, just so you know… like, even if I’m super shitfaced and making out with the hottest girl in the world, don’t go home without me, okay? Actually, you can go home without me, because I’m a big girl, but tell me first.”

Ashley, who’s sitting next to Nick, leans over to him. “Don’t even think about leaving without me.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t,” Nick promises. He isn’t planning on getting drunk or making out with anyone, so he’ll personally ensure that Ashley makes it back to the hotel.

“You’re my favorite,” Ashley says and picks up her cocktail.

Nadira soon darts away because she saw someone she knows – apparently she used to come here all the time with her roommate and knows all the regulars. She returns with three girls in tow, introduces them, “This is my bestest friend in the world, Dee, and these are Janie and April,” and then gets dragged away. They take Ashley with them, too, so Nick is left with Alex, who’s quietly sipping his drink.

The music is too loud to easily strike up a conversation, so Nick just sits next to Alex and they watch people walk by. Alex starts fiddling with his phone and Nick starts fiddling with a napkin.

They both jump when a girl walks up to their table. “Hey,” she says and smiles at them, her eyes settling on Alex. “Can I buy you a drink?”

“Uh…” Alex, obviously taken aback, clears his throat. “Thanks, but… I’m sort of waiting for someone. Sorry.”

“Oh, no worries,” she says and walks away.

“Not your type?” Nick asks.

“You know she isn’t,” Alex says. “Pretty sure she’ll find someone who’s interested, though.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. And he honestly doesn’t mean to glance at Alex’s phone, but he just can’t help it. “Are you doing Sudoku puzzles on your phone?”

Alex quickly locks his phone. “Shush, you saw nothing.”

“Dude, come on…”

“I don’t like clubs, they’re loud and people want you to dance.”

Nick snorts. “Right there with you, bud.” He picks up Alex’s empty glass. “I’ll get us more drinks.”

Alex doesn’t complain, so Nick heads over to the closest bar. Two girls start talking to him on his way there and it takes him a few minutes to actually make it to the bar. A hockey fan stops him on the way back and Nick talks to her for a moment, then another girl joins them and asks him if he’d like to dance. Nick luckily has a good excuse and escapes quickly.

“You’re so popular today,” Alex says and smiles when Nick hands him a drink. “Thanks.”

“This is…” Nick sighs. He’d rather go to the bar next door, but he can see Nadira and Ashley on the dancefloor and they’re clearly having the time of their lives. “Whatever. This is fine.”

“We’ll just sit here for a bit.”

“Yeah.” Nick nods. “For… several hours.”

Alex laughs and gives him a pat. “Time to get a Sudoku app.”

Nick shakes his head, but he does get out his phone. Waldo has been sending him pictures from the Bahamas. Nick could be in the Bahamas too, but if he’d decided to go on vacation with the boys, he wouldn’t be here talking to Alex right now, and if there’s one thing that’s important to him, it’s fixing things with Alex.

He pulls up the scores of tonight’s games. Most of the East Coast games have already ended, but the Lions are playing and they’re already down two goals halfway through the first period.

Alex doesn’t even try to pretend that he isn’t looking over Nick’s shoulder. “Nice,” he says.

“What’s  _your_  beef with the Lions?” Nick asks.

“They haven’t been making the best choices recently, wouldn’t you say?” Alex says. He’s right next to Nick now; he has to be so Nick will actually understand what he’s saying. “They’re horrible this season. It’s like they forgot how to play with each other and they keep shuffling the lines but they’re just not scoring enough. It doesn’t make any sense that they traded you.”

“Let’s not talk about that,” Nick says.

“Okay, then let’s talk about how Phoenix traded Frank Sunberg last season and how they’ve been a mess ever since,” Alex says.

Okay. Nick doesn’t mind talking about that. Actually, he has a lot to say about that trade.

Maybe they don’t need any Sudoku apps after all.

*

Nadira missed New York. She missed Dee. She missed dancing.

Right now she wants nothing more than to find a way to come back here. She doesn’t have to cover hockey, right? She could work anywhere else. She has skills. It doesn’t have to be sports journalism.

Okay. Maybe it does have to be sports journalism.

What she really wants is her job at the  _Gazette_ , but without Brad. And in New York. And that job doesn’t exist and she knows that, but she’s had a couple of drinks, so she’s having all sorts of ridiculous ideas. The thing is, the podcast is going well and she’s been getting an influx of viewers on her videos ever since they mentioned her YouTube channel on the podcast. It’s fun. The guys don’t mind if she wants to talk about women’s hockey for a change, they don’t act like it’s boring. She wishes that doing podcasts was an actual career.

The girls drag her and Ashley off to one of the bars and they get a round of shots, and then  _another_  round of shots, just for good measure.

Ashley isn’t really saying much anymore, she’s just leaning against a barstool, grinning, her cheeks bright red. Dee is talking about what she’s been up to and she complains about her new roommate who always moves around stuff in the bathroom and the kitchen. It would make things easier for Nadira if Dee’s new roommate was totally awesome and a true blessing, because this just sounds like Dee would take her back in a heartbeat.

“I miss you so much,” Dee says and wraps an arm around her.

“I miss you, too,” Nadira says. She squeezes her tightly. “You have to come visit me in Cedar Mills. It’s great. There’s so much to see. Like the deer that always hangs out in our backyard. It’s cute.”

“Oh, I’d love to see the fascinating wildlife of Connecticut,” Dee says and kisses her temple.

“Do you guys wanna head to JJs soon?” April says.

“Yay, JJs,” Dee says. “Are you coming?”

“I don’t think so,” Nadira says. She loves JJs and she spent so much time there with Dee that it felt like a second home, but JJs is a gay bar and the last thing Nadira wants is to put Nick in an awkward position.

“Aww…” Dee gives her another hug. “Next time?”

“Next time,” Nadira promises. She could just go with them, but she promised Ashley earlier that she wouldn’t ditch her somewhere in the middle of New York City. And she sure as hell won’t ditch Ashley just to hook up with some girl either.

They head back onto the dancefloor for a few more songs, then Dee, April and Jeanie decide to head to JJs and Nadira and Ashley get themselves another drink. At the bar, a girl with bright blue hair catches Nadira’s eye. Nadira doesn’t talk to her, but that girl definitely smiles at her before Ashley pulls her back onto the dancefloor.

She meets the blue-haired girl again in the crowd and it seems that Ashley notices her, too, because she grins and shouts something about the bathroom and then disappears, so Nadira is on her own.

Well, dancing with the blue-haired girl for a bit definitely can’t hurt, right?

She’s cute and she has those twinkly eyes, but – and it takes Nadira a few minutes to figure this out – this pretty blue-haired girl is not Sarah Albright. And as soon as Nadira realizes that, she sort of feels like she needs to sit down and think about her life choices.

She fucked up.

She fucked up so badly and she wants to make it right immediately, but that’s drunk Nadira talking and drunk Nadira can’t be trusted. So she needs to get rid of her phone. She smiles at the sweet blue-haired girl, apologizes, and then gets off the dancefloor and makes her way back to their booth, where Ashley is sitting with Nick and Alex.

“Take this,” Nadira says and hands her phone to Ashley.

“Why?” Alex asks.

“Self-preservation. Okay, Ash, come on. One more song, then we can go home.”

Alex actually looks delighted at the prospect of getting out of here.

“Alrighty,” Ashley says and jumps up. “Boys?”

Alex raises his eyebrows at her. “Huh?”

*

“Come dancing with us,” Ashley says.

Alex shakes his head.

“No, I’m good,” Nick says.

Nadira sticks out her bottom lip. “Why not?”

“Leg,” Alex only says. They walked around a bit before dinner, took pictures at Times Square and then walked to the restaurant around the corner from the Ravens’ arena and Alex would greatly prefer just sitting here.

“Oh,” Nadira says and turns to Nick. “What about you, hockey boy?”

Nick sighs. He actually looks like he’s inclined to go with them.

“Please,” Nadira says.

“Please,” Ashley adds. “One song, then we can go home. Maybe two songs.”

Nadira nods. “Please.”

“ _Please_.”

“Fine,” Nick says and slides out of the booth. The girls immediately whisk him away.

Alex stays in the booth with his half-empty drink and stretches his legs under the table. Since he really doesn’t have anything better to do now, he pulls up his Sudoku app again.

He’s working on a hard one when someone says, “Hey, anyone sitting here?”

Alex looks up and finds a guy standing next to his table. He’s tall and gorgeous and he’s wearing the tightest shirt Alex has ever seen. Alex blinks at him. “Um, I don’t know. I mean. Yes. But… not right now.” He’s had way too many drinks.

“So,” the guy says, “do you mind if I keep you company for a bit?”

It’s pretty clear what this guy is asking and, well, Alex thinks he’s cute, but he’s not here on his own and maybe he’s not ready to flirt with a random guy at a nightclub. “I…”

The guy smiles. “Feel free to say no.”

“No,” Alex says. He doesn’t want to say no. “Yes. Have a seat.”

“All right. Hey. I’m Simon.”

“I’m Alex.”

“Nice to meet you, Alex,” Simon says. “See, I noticed you earlier. And maybe I glanced over here once or twice.”

Alex can’t help but grin. His face feels hot, but that might just be because of the drinks. “Did you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

“I should tell you that I’m here with my friends and they, uh, they’re not… they don’t…”

“No, worries, I gotcha,” Simon says. “I come here a lot, I know all the dark corners.” He tilts his head, his smile soft. “If a dark corner is what you’re looking for.”

“Honestly? I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

“Well, I’m totally willing to stick around and find out,” Simon says. “Like, even if you just want to have an invigorating conversation about the weather.”

Alex can’t help but be charmed by this guy. “Really?”

“Really,” Simon says.

Ten minutes ago, Alex wanted to go home, but now he wouldn’t mind staying a little while longer.

As it turns out, Simon is from Connecticut, too, but he’s been living in the city since he graduated college five years ago. They don’t talk about hockey. It doesn’t even come up. They talk about the city, about their favorite bands, and the movies that disappointed them the most. Simon tells him about his cat, Pumpkin, and shows him about a dozen pictures, and Alex shows him pictures of Byron in return. Alex barely notices that two songs go by and Nadira, Ashley and Nick don’t return. He doesn’t care right now.

Simon leans closer as their conversation goes on and maybe Alex’s hand is moving closer to Simon’s leg, slowly, very slowly, until the tips of his fingers bump against Simon’s thigh and Simon’s lips curl into a smile.

Alex feels like he’s just floundering along at this point. He doesn’t flirt with random guys. He doesn’t chat up dudes at nightclubs. This is so not his area of expertise, but what he does know is that a cute guy is definitely interested in him and Alex is more and more inclined to ask Simon to show him one of those dark corners he was talking about.

Simon is still smiling at him, so Alex must be doing something right.

“So,” Alex says, “do you think we could–”

“Alex?”

Great. Of course Nick would come back right now, just when Alex was about to actually get over himself. Nick is eyeing Simon with suspicion.

“Yeah?” Alex says.

“Nadi and Ash are ready to head back to the hotel,” Nick says. “They’re waiting for us by the door.”

Of course they want to leave  _now_.

“Sure, I’ll be right there,” Alex says.

Nick hovers by the table and for a moment it seems like he wants to say something, but then he just nods and walks away.

“Guess you’re leaving, huh?” Simon asks. “And since you don’t live here, I don’t suppose I’ll randomly run into you when I get my morning coffee?”

“Sorry,” Alex says.

Simon tips his head to the side. Alex wants to lean in so much, just because. He leans closer, just by an inch and Simon reaches out to curl his fingers around the back of Alex’s neck. He’s not pulling Alex closer, he’s just waiting for him to make his move.

Alex gives himself a few seconds before he closes the distance between them. It’s a soft kiss, just a quick goodbye.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Alex,” Simon says.

Alex only smiles at him. His evening took a pretty unexpected turn when Simon showed up. “Thanks for keeping me company,” Alex says. “Sorry, but I gotta go.”

“Be safe out there,” Simon says, winks at him, and then slides out of the booth.

“You too,” Alex calls after him.

He slowly gets up, makes sure that no one left anything behind in the booth and then makes his way over to the door. He can’t for the life of him wipe that goofy smile off his face.

Alex needed this.

He had no idea how much.


	51. bye week, Chapter 10.4

**bye week**

 

**Chapter 10.4**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

Bye New York I’ll be back soon <3

 

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

Had a great time with the boys but it’s nice to be back home :)

*

“Okay, this is your room,” Alex says and gently takes the key card that Nadira was fiddling with. “Let me help you with that.”

“Love you,” Nadira says. “So helpful.”

Nick snorts and wanders off to his and Alex’s room.

“You know,” Nadira says, “we have a door to your room. You can use it if you want. I’m not…” She shakes her head. “I forgot what I was gonna say.”

“You shouldn’t have had that goodbye tequila,” Ashley says and leans against the wall.

“Yeah, ’t was a mistake,” Nadira mumbles. They bought tequilas while they were waiting for Alex. They seemed like a good idea at the time, but they clearly weren’t.

“Here you go,” Alex says and unlocks their door. “Do I need to tuck you guys in or are you gonna be okay?”

“We’ll be fiiiiine,” Ashley says and stumbles into their room.

“Totally fine,” Nadira says. “Nighty-night, sweetiepie.”

“Yeah.” Alex nods. “Good night.”

Nadira blows him a kiss because she just can’t help herself and then lets the door fall shut. “Why am I so messy,” Nadira says and flops down on her bed. “Like… my whole life… s’messy.”

“Aw, Nadi,” Ashley says, very slowly trying to take off her shoes. She eventually manages and starts struggling with her dress. “I’ll tell you a secret. We’re all messy. And it looks like everyone else totally has it together, but the truth is that no one really has it together.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Ashley pulls on a huge college football shirt and crawls into bed. “Like, I’m messy, too. Having a job is messy. And dealing with your family is even messier. And that whole wedding thing? Super messy.”

Nadira sighs. She can’t really focus on an actual conversation anymore and she should just go to sleep, but first she needs to know Ashley’s secret. “Okay, but… how did you do it?”

“How did I do what?”

“Find the perfect guy? Like, I don’t want a guy, but… y’know what I mean. You’re happy, you’re getting married, how did you do that?”

Ashley laughs. “I have no idea. I guess I just stumbled across the right person really, really early.”

“Lucky you.”

Ashley doesn’t reply, so Nadira looks up. Ashley is staring back at her, her makeup a little smudged around her eyes.

“What?” Nadira asks.

“Okay, it’s so bad that I’m even thinking this, but…” Ashley takes a deep breath. “No, I can’t say it. It’s bad. It’s honestly so… It’s a selfish thing to think.”

“Just say it,” Nadira mumbles. “Might make you feel better.”

“Well, it’s just… There are so many things I didn’t do.”

“Like what?”

“I never went traveling. I mean, I did, but it was for competitions. And every decision I made was never just my decision, because Jamie and I are a team and we’ve always decided things together, but it’s never been just me, and I love Jamie, honestly, I love him so much, but I feel like I’m missing a piece somehow. Like, I think about that wedding and I always think,  _Oh, I guess this is it, then?_  That’s horrible, isn’t it?”

“I–”

“And don’t even say anything about cold feet. My feet aren’t cold. I want to marry Jamie. I love him. But I want something else, too.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Ashley says.

“Guess you’ll have to go find it.”

“Yeah.” Ashley sighs. “Anyway… You’ll find your someone. Sometimes those someones are just hiding.”

Nadira hums. She isn’t even surprised that her first thought when Ashley says that is Sarah. What if Sarah is her someone? And Nadira is so busy with her career that she’s letting her get away. And then she’ll be alone forever.  _Great_.

“Hey, Nadi?”

“Hm?”

“How would you feel about being a bridesmaid?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’re not just asking me because you’re drunk?” Nadira asks.

Ashley laughs. “I’m not that drunk, you know?”

“Yeah, how did you do  _that_?”

“I don’t know, I can drink Jamie under the table, too.”

“You’re small and mighty,” Nadira says. “All the best people are. Anyway. Yes. Bridesmaid.”

“I don’t know what to do about the dresses yet. There’s gonna be a lot of purple. How do you feel about wearing a purple dress?”

“I don’t know, is the purple dress gonna have puffy sleeves?”

“Unlikely.”

“Then I’m okay with purple,” Nadira says.

“I’m gonna ask Sarah, too. See, I’m doing this whole wedding thing totally wrong and my mom is losing her shit because I’m apparently really bad at planning weddings.”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, it will be.”

“Ash?”

“Yeah?”

“I think I need to sleep,” Nadira mutters.

“I think that is wise.”

Nadira is pretty sure that she replies, but what comes out of her mouth doesn’t actually sound like a coherent sentence. Whatever.

Time to sleep.

*

Alex has already curled up in bed when Nick comes out of the bathroom. He’s pulled the sheets up to his chin and all Nick can see from over here is a tuft of dark curls sticking out from under the covers.

Nick climbs into bed as well and finds Alex looking back at him from the other bed once he’s settled down.

Nick clears his throat. “Sorry for dragging you away.”

Alex blinks at him.

“It seemed like you might have wanted to stay,” Nick goes on. The guy Alex was talking to looked like he was definitely interested in sticking around. And in doing a little more than just talk.

“I…” Alex sighs. “No, it’s fine, although… He was nice.”

Nick isn’t exactly sure what to say to that. “That’s, uh… nice.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I don’t…” Alex rubs his eyes. “I kissed him.”

“You did?” Nick feels a pang of jealous at that, because Alex can just be himself, he can be out there and he can kiss strangers, and those strangers can be men and it doesn’t really matter.

It doesn’t matter, because Alex has nothing to lose.

He’s already lost it all. And now Nick feels even worse that he was jealous.

“I’ve never kissed a guy in public before,” Alex says. “Never. Well, not until tonight anyway.”

“You could have stayed, you know? We could have made up an excuse.”

“ _We_?”

“I mean, I would have covered for you,” Nick says.

Alex stares at him for a long moment. “Has anyone ever covered for you?”

“No,” Nick replies, “but I never asked anyone to. Nobody knows.”

“No one at all? Didn’t you trust anyone enough to tell them. Like, in LA? There was no one?”

“It didn’t seem…” Nick takes a deep breath. He’s having this conversation with someone, he’s actually talking about this. He can feel some tension leave him, just a little bit, with every word he says. “I was so scared. You have no idea. I mean, what if someone found out? Then everyone would know? I don’t want to be… I wouldn’t know how to deal with that.”

“So you just went out with girls and pretended it was what you wanted?” Alex asks, his voice low.

“Yeah.”

Alex huffs.

“Believe me, I felt bad about it.”

“No, I mean… that fact that you feel like you need to do that–”

“I know,” Nick interrupts. “But what would you have done?”

“I don’t know.”

Nick rolls onto his back, staring up at the ceiling for a long moment. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” he says. He doesn’t even know if Alex is still listening or if he’s fallen asleep. It doesn’t matter. Nick is so glad that he can finally say these things out loud.

“You don’t have to date someone all the time,” Alex says.

“Sure, but… I’m just paranoid.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Alex is quiet for a moment, then he adds, “I don’t know what to tell you. It sucks. I mean, it seems daunting, doesn’t it? Just the thought of always being alone?” He whistles. “Wow, this is getting really depressing really quickly. I’m sorry.”

“No, but you’re right,” Nick says. “I think about it sometimes, you know? The other guys in the league, who are… I mean, there must be others.”

“Yeah, if I was in the league, I’d be right there with you.” Alex props himself up on his elbow. “Do you want me to tell you that it’ll be okay?”

Nick looks back at him. Alex will tell him whatever he needs to hear right now. He shakes his head. “No,” Nick says. He already has everything he needs for now. Someone to listen. Someone who understands.

Alex nods. He reaches out for the light switch, waiting for Nick to nod as well before he turns it off.

They don’t say goodnight, but after a minute or two have ticked by, Alex says, “You know… it might not end up going the way you think it’ll end up going.”

“What?”

“Your life,” Alex says. “And… that doesn’t have to a be a bad thing. Things might actually turn out okay.”

“You don’t sound convinced, though.”

“I don’t know, I really don’t. I’m just saying, don’t… well, don’t feel like you won’t ever be able to have it all. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

“Maybe,” Nick echoes.

“Go to sleep, Nicky,” Alex whispers.

Nick hums and closes his eyes. It only takes him less than a minute to fall asleep.

*

It’s late when Connor parks his car on the gravel outside the house. Nadira’s car isn’t there. The light next to the front door is on – Alex always leaves it on when Connor comes home from a roadie. Only today he’s coming home from the Bahamas.

It was an excellent break. It was all just cocktails and lying on the beach and hanging out with the guys.

Byron isn’t there to greet him, which means he’s probably already asleep. Or Alex is still up. Connor hurls his bag upstairs and then sneaks back down to the kitchen, where he finds some cold pizza in the fridge. He takes two slices upstairs and briefly considers unpacking. A knock on the door saves Connor from behaving like an actual adult.

“Yeah?”

Alex opens the door and pokes his head inside. “Hey. You’re back.”

“I am,” Connor says and nods at his bed. “Wanna hear about how awesome it was?”

“Sure, I mean, I was–” Alex shakes his head, closes the door and sits down at the end of Connor’s bed. “Sure.”

“It was super awesome,” Connor says. He leaves it at that, because he has a feeling that Alex knocked on his door for a reason. “What were you gonna say?”

“Oh,” Alex says. “Well. I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Connor freezes, half-eaten pizza in his hand. “Was I not supposed to eat this pizza?”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Okay, good,” Connor says, but he still doesn’t have an explanation for why Alex looks so serious. “Oh, crap, you want me to move out, don’t you?”

“What? No.”

“Then why are you looking like somebody died. Shit, did somebody die?”

“No,” Alex says. “Everything’s fine. It’s fine. I just need to– Give me just one second, okay?”

“O–kay,” Connor says.

“Listen,” Alex says, “I don’t really know where to start and I don’t want to make things weird, but I trust you and, yeah, anyway…”

Connor doesn’t say anything, he just waits. He’s not sure why people always end up telling him things that clearly aren’t easy to say, but he’s feeling a strange sense of déjà vu right now.

“The thing is…” Alex says. He’s sitting there, staring at his socks. He takes a deep breath. “I like guys. I mean, I…” Another deep breath. “I’m gay.”

“Okay,” Connor says. He leaves it at that for now.

He’s had conversations like this one before. He still doesn’t know what the expectation is in a situation like this, but so far he’s managed not to fuck it up. He’s trying to be a good friend, so  _okay_  always seems like a failsafe thing to say. Because it is okay and he wants Alex to know that it is and that he didn’t make a mistake in coming to him to tell him. 

It can’t have been easy to make this decision. Alex grew up with hockey, and Connor knows what the guys in the room can be like. Being gay and growing up in that kind of environment must have been hard.

Alex looks up, still serious, a little defiant. “ _Okay_?”

“Yeah,” Connor says. “Do you… do you wanna talk about it? Or did you just want to tell me? Either way… Okay. It’s okay. Not that you need me to tell you that, I guess, but… I’ll shut up now.”

“Just… don’t tell anyone,” Alex says. He still looks taken aback. “At least for now.”

“Sure,” Connor says. “I can keep a secret, I promise.” Really. He’s keeping many secrets right now. He knows how it works.

“Thank you,” Alex says and moves to get up. Looks like he really just wanted to tell Connor and be done with it. No big deal. No big conversation. 

Connor can definitely work with that, but he can’t let Alex go  _that_  quickly. “Hey, wait.” He reaches out and gives Alex a nudge. “I get it if you don’t want this to be a big deal, but, like… Why are you telling me now?”

“I’ve been thinking about telling you for a while and… I don’t know. We went to New York over the weekend and a bunch of stuff happened and… yeah. Here we are.”

Connor doesn’t ask what happened in New York; he doesn’t want to be nosy. He’s just glad that Alex felt like he could tell him this, because it looks like he hasn’t told all that many people. He reaches out and pulls Alex into a hug.

Alex lets him.

“I’m a hundred percent on your side all the time,” Connor says. “I just want you to know that.”

“Thank you,” Alex says and hugs him back. “Okay… we can let go now.”

Connor laughs. “Okay.” He gives Alex one more squeeze before he lets go. “Like, don’t feel like you ever have to tell me anything, but also… do feel like you can tell me things if you want to. If that makes sense.”

Alex smiles and nods.

“You can leave now. I promise I won’t try to hug you again.”

Alex pats Connor’s arm and gets up. “Good to have you back, Waldo.”

“Yeah.” Connor smiles at Alex. “I missed you guys.”

He really, really did.


	52. stars, Chapter 11.1

**stars**

 

**Chapter 11.1**

 

*

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Rivera, Walden and Wilson stuck around after practice today, tried some interesting passes.

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Rivera just ended up in Wilson’s net, Walden wasn’t too happy and dropped the gloves. Threw them at Rivera, but he wouldn’t engage. Smart move there by Rivera.

*

“Ms. Patel, a word?”

Nadira looks up and finds Brad hovering next to her desk. He doesn’t look like he’s about to fire her, but he called her  _Ms. Patel_  and now she’s scared. She’s working on an article right now and Brad hasn’t even taken a look at it yet, so he shouldn’t have anything to complain about. Then again, guys like Brad excel at finding things to complain about.

“How can I help you?” Nadira asks.

“Well…” Brad pulls up a chair. “I’m curious.”

Nadira can see Don hovering behind Brad. Charlie, over at the intern desk, is trying to pretend that he’s busy, but he keeps glancing at them, his eyes wide. Something’s going on here.

“Is something wrong?” Nadira asks.

“Absolutely not,” Brad says, but he still looks like he’s about to scold her for something. “I just couldn’t help but notice…” He clears his throat. “As I’m sure you know the Cardinals just had their bye week and I did keep an eye on what the players were up to. See, I found a picture of Nick Rivera. He was at a Blaze game in New York. With you.”

Well,  _yikes_. “Well,” Nadira says, buying some time to talk herself out of this, “he wasn’t actually there with  _me_.”

“No?”

“No,” Nadira says, a less than ideal story piecing itself together in her head. It’s all she can come up with at the moment. “We were there with a mutual friend.”

“Is that mutual friend Alexander Goldman by any chance?” Brad asks. He clearly already knows the answer.

Nadira could pretend that the mutual friend is Ashley, but at this point, she somehow doesn’t manage to think fast enough and says, “Yes, that is right.”

“You know Alexander Goldman?” Brad asks, like he can’t quite believe that someone like Nadira would have connections like that. Because that’s clearly all Brad is thinking about. The connections. To the Goldmans.

“I do,” Nadira confirms. Okay, this is actually sort of fun. The look on Brad’s face is priceless and Don has also gone a little bug-eyed. “He owns the ice rink in the town I live in. You once sent me there to cover their hockey camp, remember?”

Brad clears his throat. “Yes, yes, of course. Are you aware that Alexander Goldman is the son of Zachary Goldman who–”

“Obviously,” Nadira interrupts.

“And how close exactly are you and Nick Rivera?” Brad asks.

“We’ve met a couple of times,” Nadira replies. She’s not going to give him too much information. And she certainly won’t mention that she basically grew up with Nick Rivera.

Brad stares at her for a long, drawn-out moment. “Nadira, this is obviously none of my business,” he says, clearly about to get involved in her business, “but do you think it would be possible for you to reach out to–”

Nadira doesn’t let him finish. “I don’t think so,” Nadira says.

“What you have to understand, Nadira, is that Alexander Goldman hasn’t given any interviews since his accident a couple of years ago. I’m sure you know that it ended his career and an opportunity to talk to him would mean a great deal. I’m sure Mrs. Norris would be very impressed if you managed to get me an interview with him.”

Nadira is honestly speechless. Brad actually thinks, for real, in all honesty, that Nadira would get  _him_  an interview with Alex. Seriously. “I’m actually convinced he wouldn’t want to talk to you,” Nadira says. Even if they lived in a universe where Nadira was willing to ask Alex, there’s a 0% chance that Alex would agree to talk to Brad.

Brad purses his lips at her. “Well, think about it, won’t you?”

“Sure,” Nadira says, just to get rid of him.

Brad clearly isn’t happy when he goes back to his desk. Don gives her a look she can’t quite read and wanders off as well. Once they’re gone, Charlie rolls over to her desk on his chair.

“You met  _Nick Rivera_?” Charlie whispers. “You  _talked_  to him? And you came by to do the podcast on Sunday and said  _nothing_?”

“Okay, listen–”

“He’s. Nick. Rivera.”

“I know,” Nadira says.

Charlie nods. “Yeah. So?”

Nadira looks over her shoulder to make sure that both Brad and Don are out of earshot, then she says, “I’ve known him for a while.”

“What?”

“Shhhh…” Nadira gives Charlie’s chair a shove. “We grew up together, okay? And he really is friends with Alex Goldman and–”

“Alex Goldman,” Charlie whispers, awe in his voice.

Nadira sighs. “Yeah. So. Alex is… I live in his house.”

“You…  _what_?”

“Charlie, please,” Nadira says.

“Jesus, Nadira, what else are you hiding?” Charlie laughs. “This is awesome. What’s he like?”

“Nick?”

“Well, actually, both of them. You know, Alex Goldman… he was amazing when he played in college. I’ve seen his stats, he led his college team in goals and points and I’m sure he would have ended up becoming their captain. There’s  a good chance that he would have eventually been better than his dad.”

“I know,” Nadira says.

“So, what’s he like?”

“He’s a good dude.” But that’s really all Nadira is gonna tell him about Alex, because it’s none of anyone’s business what Alex is up to. “Nick’s a good dude, too.”

“He always seems so serious.”

Nadira snorts. “Yeah, I guess he does.”

“Is he?”

“Charlie, come on, I’m not gonna talk about private stuff at work.”

Charlie brings out the puppy eyes. “Not even off the record?”

“Not today,” Nadira says.

“Aw, okay,” Charlie says. “Anyway, tell them both they can come on the podcast whenever they want, okay?”

“I will,” Nadira promises. She’ll mention it in passing; she’s sure that Nick will say no and Alex will probably laugh in her face. She doesn’t tell Charlie that, though, because no one wants to see that kid look sad this early in the morning.

When Brad leaves the office to head to the Cardinals’ practice rink for the first morning skate after the bye week, he shoots Nadira a look that still has a little disbelief in it.

Nadira turns back to her computer to hide her smirk.

Sure, she didn’t want Brad to know about any of this, but that was honestly the most fun she’s ever had at the office.

*

“Fuck off! Stop touching my net. Get your hands off, you little shit.”

Connor laughs and gives Nick a shove. Nick falls over and bounces off the back of the net. “Rivs touched your net,” Connor shouts and takes off.

Nick immediately starts chasing him and catches up with him in no time, running him into the boards very, very lightly.

“You didn’t even try,” Connor says.

Nick gives him the patented Rivera Grump Face. He backs up a little and then comes right at him again. Connor laughs and catches him.

“Much better, well done.”

Nick elbows him in the ribs and Connor gives his bucket a pat. Practice was somewhat unpleasant today. They’re back from their bye week and while they definitely needed the break, Connor was a little slow to get back into his groove today. Nick, of course didn’t have that problem. He went to New York for the weekend, but he spent some time at the rink every day. He works harder than anyone else Connor has ever played with.

“How was Hawaii?” Nick asks as they skate back over to the other guys.

“Nice,” Connor says. “And warm.”

A bunch of the guys had brought their girlfriends, so Connor was mostly hanging out with Willie. He did meet a girl. A nice girl. A girl he’d love to see again someday, but she was on vacation, too, and she was from Chicago, so chances are that Connor will never see her again.

He doesn’t mention any of that to Nick.

There are a lot of things that you can talk to Nick about, and that includes hockey, and pretty much all other sports in existence, and food, and general life advice, no matter if it’s insurance or taxes or personal matters, but discussing his love life with Nick isn’t usually very productive.

Nick is one of those guys who’s only moderately interested in talking about girls and that’s fine, if the guy wants to have his privacy and not talk about the girls he takes home, that’s his business. They talked about it once on a roadie and Nick mentioned that he’d been seeing a girl here and there in LA, but that was just because Connor brought it up in the first place. It’s nothing Nick would mention without being prompted.

“Hey, Rivs.” Mike skates over to them, his grin broad, as always. “My sister told me that you came to one of their games.”

“I did.”

“I can’t believe I missed that,” Connor says. He’s promised Sarah that he would come to one of her games and he still hasn’t managed so far. He does have a pretty whacky schedule, but it shouldn’t be this hard to go to a hockey game. The Panthers’ arena isn’t even that far away from here.

“It was a good game,” Nick says.

“Yeah, so she told me that you might be interested in helping out with the girls’ training camp?” Mike asks.

“I’d love to if they’ll have me.”

Mike gives him a pat. “They sure will. Good of you to support them.”

Connor never really thought about it this way, not before he started hanging out with Sarah so much anyway, but the women’s teams really do deserve a lot more recognition. They play the same game, but they have to have jobs so they’ll be able to pay rent. They play because they love it, and, well, so does Connor, but he’s also being handed a fuckton of money on top of it.

Connor isn’t making plans for the summer just yet. He won’t until after the trade deadline. It’s his least favorite day of the year, because you never know, do you? Sure, there are guys with no-trade clauses, but who’s actually lucky enough to have one of those. Even guys like Nick got traded – Nick apparently had a list of ten teams in his contract that the Lions were allowed to trade him to and it just so happened that one of those ten teams was interested.

“Nobody is safe,” Shane always said, and he’d look at Connor with wide eyes, making hissing noises. Shane is weird like that, but that’s why Connor likes him so much. He misses his Shane.

Connor should hit him up and convince him to go on vacation with him this summer. Or maybe Shane could come visit him here. If things to go his way for once, Connor is going to help out at Alex’s hockey camp this summer and having Shane around for that would definitely be a great surprise for the kids.

Sometimes he came back here during the off-season, usually when his brother came to visit as well, or he went directly to New York and hung out with his brother for a couple of days. Last summer was different, because he’d just gotten traded and needed to move all of his stuff to Connecticut. He’s hoping that he won’t have to do hurl all of his belongings across the country again this year. It’d be nice if he just got to stay for a couple of seasons. The thing is, maybe he’s just not the kind of player who gets to stay for a couple of seasons and maybe it’s time for him to come to terms with that.  

Nick gives him a tap with his stick and pulls him out of his thoughts. “Wanna stick around a little longer after practice?” Nick asks. “Just for fun?”

To Nick Rivera even hard work is fun. Quite frankly, Connor knows that he could use the extra practice, but he also kind of wants to lie down for a very long time. And he’s hungry. “Sure, wanna go grab a bite later?”

“Sounds good,” Nick says.

Nick is fun to watch, not only because he’s so fast, but also because some of his moves are downright ridiculous. The stuff he tries on Willie, who’s in the net, cackling whenever Nick starts yet another bizarre attempt to get the puck past him, whooping every time he manages to make a save.

As the three of them leave the ice, no one else lingering now, it occurs to Connor that probably for the first time in his career, he stuck around after practice not just because he felt like he wasn’t good enough. He stuck around because it was fun.

He’d forgotten what it feels like to just enjoy being on the ice and playing your heart out. Despite the trade deadline looming on the horizon, Connor doesn’t feel too worried.


	53. stars, Chapter 11.2

**stars**

 

**Chapter 11.2**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Meet this year’s All Stars: Joshua Roy and Nicolas Rivera are headed to Boston to represent your Cardinals! #GoCardsGo #NHLAllStarWeekend

*

“Nick, having spent time in the Pacific while you were with the Lions, you faced off against the Wildcats several times each season, do think that’s going to help you in the game tomorrow night?”

Nick takes a few seconds to think about it, because he does try to give answers that make sense and are only somewhat rehearsed, especially when it’s actually a question about hockey. “Well, I would say that everyone here prepares for games and maybe I have a little more experience playing against the Wildcats, because, being over here, we only play them twice each season, but, you know, we have a lot of experienced guys in the room and everyone’s prepared.”

“Another question about the Wildcats,” a guy in the worst brown suit Nick has ever seen says. “They’re coming off a six-game win streak. How do you break a streak like that?”

Nick wipes his hair out of his face, wondering what he’s done to deserve that question. “By winning the game,” he says, because he just can’t help himself.

That earns him a few chuckles. Brown Suit looks less than delighted.

“In all seriousness, though,” Nick goes on, “they’re on the road, they’re playing tonight, so it’ll be a back-to-back game for them and that can only be an advantage for us. What we have to focus on is breaking through their defense and getting pucks to the net. You know, we do enjoy breaking other teams’ winning streaks.”

They broke the Grizzlies’ five-game win streak earlier this month, so they have some experience.

“Nick, obviously we have to talk about the upcoming All Star game–”

_Obviously_.

“–and since you’re going for the second time in a row, I was wondering what it means to you to be selected again?”

Nick loves that question, because is extraordinarily easy to answer. “Obviously it’s pretty special to play with all those amazing players. Josh is going, too, of course, and no one deserves it more than him, he’s been fantastic all season.”

“Ian Grey and Patrick Miller of the Los Angeles Lions will be attending the All Star game as well,” Brown Suit says. “Are you looking forward to reconnecting with your former teammates?”

“I’m not sure how much reconnecting there will actually be, since we’ll still be on different teams, but I’m looking forward to, uh… catching up with them.” Nick did get along with Ian, he was a good captain and he helped Nick a lot when he was just starting out in the league. Patrick was always a little– They weren’t friends. They just had fundamentally different opinions on, well, pretty much everything. He’s a great goalie, sure, but Nick probably won’t say more than hello if they run into each other.

They throw a few more questions his way, the last one is from Ellie Hausman, who works for Cards Insider. “I couldn’t help but notice that you’re not wearing number thirteen today,” she says.

That’s not a question, but Nick figured that someone would notice and he knows that little things like this are really popular with the fans, so he decides to indulge Ellie. Mostly because she’s nice and Nick likes talking to her and she usually asks questions he actually likes to answer. He grins at her. “Yeah, I seem to have misplaced my hoodie,” Nick says. “Or someone misplaced it for me. Anyway, I’m number four until I find it.”

After talking to the media, Nick will be doing a segment for CardsTV about the All Star game. Alan Harper is going to sit down with him and Yoshi and they’ll talk for a bit.

Connor comes over to him before he leaves the locker room and pats his head. “Keep the hoodie, it looks  _so cute_  on you,” Connor says.

Behind them, Santa cackles. He throws an arm around Nick. “So cute. I wonder what happened to your hoodie.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Guess we’ll never know,” Santa says, gives Nick a pat and swaggers away.

Connor laughs. “Maybe he’ll give it back. Or maybe he’ll take it home and put it on Peanut.”

Nick snorts and goes back to this stall, shaking his head.

The locker room slowly empties until only Nick and Yoshi are left. Yoshi looks like he’s perfectly fine with sticking around, really, he always looks like he’d love to spend another five hours at the rink, no matter what time it is.

“Not gonna lie, I thought Jordie was gonna get picked for the All Star game,” Nick says to Yoshi when he sits down next to him and asks if he’s excited to go to Boston for the All Star weekend.

“Yeah, it’s too bad that they can only pick so many goalies,” Yoshi says. “And, you know how it is… Some teams just get to send more players than others.”

Yeah, Nick knows how it is. LA has two players going despite their less than stellar season. Three players are going for Chicago, even though they likely won’t even make the playoffs at this rate. The Cardinals are in playoff position right now and it’s only him and Yoshi. They’re only in a wildcard spot, but still.

Harpy arrives a moment later, chipper and smiley as always. You can usually  _hear_  Harpy approach, because he knows everyone who works here by name and insists on greeting them loudly.

“Boys,” he says as he comes into the locker room, “good to see you.” He gives the camera guy a pat on the back. “Looks like we’re almost ready to go.”

The interview doesn’t take too long – they talk about last year’s All Star game in San Diego, about the upcoming one in Boston, about what they’re looking forward to. It’s not particularly challenging and Harpy seems to be pleased by their answers.

Once they’re done with the interview, Harpy pulls Nick aside. “Nick, do you have a minute?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nick says.  _Everyone_  has a minute for Harpy if he asks for one. He’s a legend in the Cardinals franchise; he was around for all of the Cardinals’ Cup wins, although for the first one, he’d only just been added to the roster and was on the bench as their backup goalie.

“See, I like to stay up to date with what you boys are up to and I saw that you’ve been to a Blaze game recently,” Harpy says.

Nick nods. “Yeah, that was fun.”

“I saw a picture online and… You were there with Alex Goldman?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“You know, Alex’s dad and I used to play together,” Harpy tells him. “I knew Alex when he was a kid. How’s he doing these days? I know that he had this really bad accident a few years ago. Is he still playing at all?”

“Um, he’s okay,” Nick says. “He runs the rink in Cedar Mills. Well, he owns it, actually.”

“Oh, that’s right, I think Zach mentioned that the last time I talked to him. I’m glad to hear he’s doing okay. Will you tell him Harpy said hello?”

“Yeah, of course,” Nick says.

Harpy nods and pats Nick’s back before he leaves. Somehow, there’s really nothing more reassuring than a pat on the back from Alan Harper.

*

“Alex, oh my God, you have to see this,” Ashley shouts as she comes running down the hallway to the front office. Ashley’s shift ended not too long ago, but she’s clearly had time to find something outrageous on the internet.

“Do I?” Alex asks.

Byron perks up and sticks his head out from under the desk. He wants to see whatever is going on here.

Ashley comes into the office and pulls up a chair, phone in her other hand, a video already open. “Here, watch this, it’s a gift.”

It’s a video from the All Star game interviews where they handed players puppies and kittens and bunnies and other cuddly friends. Nadira was all over those yesterday. She insisted on showing Alex half a dozen pictures of Josh Roy holding a bunny. Admittedly, it was a cute bunny.

“Is that Yoshi with the bunny? Because I’ve already seen that one,” Alex says.

“Ohhh, they gave Yoshi a bunny?” Ashley coos. “That’s so adorable.”

“Yes. And a turtle.”

“Amazing,” Ashley says. “Anyway, this is the interview with Nick.”

“Ah.” Alex should have guessed as much. He hasn’t seen Nick’s video yet and Nadira was too distracted by Yoshi and the bunny yesterday.

“Here, watch it…” Ashley hits play. “I’ll go find myself some nachos.”

There’s an intro, then the camera pans to Nick, perched on a cushion on the floor across from an interviewer who smiles and says, “Thanks for joining us, Nick.” The caption reads  _F Nicolas Rivera – Connecticut Cardinals_. “While we talk today, we’d like to introduce you to a friend from a local shelter.”

“All right,” Nick says, and his smile looks less tight all of a sudden.

They likely briefed him before doing the interview, so Nick doesn’t look surprised when he’s being handed a fluffy black cat with a white splotch on its face.

“This is Emily, she’s two years old and she’s adoptable,” the interviewer says, her smile bright. “You can also adopt her friends Anne and Charlotte.” Two more cats join the interview – one of them, a tiny gray kitten, immediately starts climbing up Nick’s knee, the other one, an older calico cat, is clearly unimpressed and marches right out of the frame, only to be directed back to the interviewer, who picks her up and winces when she sinks her claw into her thigh. She never loses her smile, though. Alex is impressed.

Nick is clearly not paying much attention to the other two cats. The black one is curled up in his lap, obviously content. “Oh, she has a sock,” Nick says and gently pats the cat’s single white paw.

“So, you told us earlier that you’re more of a cat person than a dog person,” the interviewer says. “Why is that?”

Alex reaches down to Byron and scratches him behind the ears. “Don’t listen, buddy.”

“Well, it’s not like I don’t like dogs,” Nick says. “Really, dogs are great, but I feel like cats and I just always get along.”

“Looks like you and Emily have already hit it off. Do you have any pets?”

“Not at the moment,” Nick says. He picks up the gray kitten when it’s successfully climbed up his knee and holds it against his chest.

The interviewer looks like she’s head over heels in love with Nick. Alex can hardly blame her. When you hand a kitten to a guy like Nick, everyone in a 10-mile radius will fall in love with him. “Well,” the interviewer says, “let’s talk about this weekend. You’re here for the second time in a row, congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Nick says. “I’m happy to be here.”

“What’s your favorite thing about the All Star weekend?”

“I think probably getting to play with people who are usually on opposing teams,” Nick says.

“Anyone in particular you’re looking forward to playing with?”

“I’m sure that being on a team with Simon Kinsella will be great,” Nick replies.

Alex snorts. Yeah. Simon Kinsella is a beast in goal; the Eagles are lucky to have him.

“Playing with Boris Markov will be fun, too,” Nick goes on.

“He might end up on your line,” the interviewer says.

“Well, let’s see what our coach thinks.” Nick sets down the kitten on the floor when it starts clawing at his hands and goes back to petting the big fluffy black cat, who’s clearly taken a keen liking to him.

The interviewer asks him a few more questions after that, but none of them are too exciting, and Nick seems to be a lot more excited about his new friend Emily. The interview concludes with the interviewer pointing out once again that all the animals that assist them in their interviews are up for adoption.

“Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Ashley says as she strides back into the office just when the interviewer thanks Nick for talking to them and Nick thanks them for having him.

“Yeah, it’s, uh… cute,” Alex says.

“Okay, now watch this…” Ashley takes the phone away from him and pulls up another video, this time a CardsTV episode from earlier today.

“Good morning from Boston,” Alan Harper says, “and I’m here with our very own Nick Rivera to talk about the most recent developments here at the league’s annual All Star weekend. Thanks for being here, Nick!”

“Thanks for having me,” Nick says.

“So, I’ve heard through the grapevine that everyone was doing interviews with some furry friends yesterday,” Alan says. “And I’ve been told that you really hit it off with one of them?”

Nick smiles. “Yeah, Emily will be coming home to Connecticut with me.”

“And Emily is a…?”

“She’s a cat,” Nick says, beaming from ear to ear. “I’ve never had one, but I have a friend who has three. I’m sure she’ll be able to give me some tips.”

Alex has rarely ever seen him look that happy while he was talking to the media.

“He adopted the black cat,” Ashley squeals.

“Have you already texted him to congratulate him?” Alex says dryly.

Ashley laughs. “Of course. And guess what… he has a friend who has three cats.”

“Yeah, I wonder who that is,” Alex says.

“An NHL player mentioned me in an interview,” Ashley whispers. “Jamie is gonna lose his shit when I tell him about this. Do you think Nick will introduce us to the kitty?”

“I’m sure he will. He needs tips from you, remember?”

“Yeah,” Ashley says, nodding, “First step, make an Instagram account for the cat.”

“I’m not sure if he’ll be up for that,” Alex says. Nick does have a Twitter account, but he uses it roughly twice a year.

“Well, I can be very convincing.” Ashley gives Alex a nudge. “And I still think that you should make an Instagram account for Byron.”

Byron wags his tail when he hears his name.

“No,” Alex says.

Ashley shrugs. “You’ll come around.”


	54. stars, Chapter 11.3

**stars**

 

**Chapter 11.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @NadiPatel

I think Boris Markov wanted to smooch Nick Rivera after that goal and honestly?? hard same #NHLAllStarWeekend

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Nick Rivera is showing off all sorts of talents at the #NHLAllStarWeekend. Here’s NHL correspondent Marc Corriveau’s interview with Nick… in French!

*

“If Nick wins the All Star game he has to buy all of us drinks,” Sarah says.

“I love that you’re implying that he’s the only one who’s going to win,” Connor says.

“What if he ends up getting the MVP award and wins the fucking car,” Nadira throws in. “Then he has to drive us everywhere.”

Connor clears his throat. “He has a car.”

“To be honest, I don’t know if he has to keep the car if he wins it, but Nick seems like the sort of guy who’d sell it and donate the money to charity,” Nadira says.

“True,” Sarah says.

They pass around the popcorn, then they pass around the cookies, then they pass around the chips, and Sarah grabs a little bit from each bowl – the game is taking a ridiculously long time to start and since Sarah is trying not to look at Nadira, because looking at Nadira does bad things to her heart, she just has to stuff food into her mouth instead.

“Please tell me that your All Star game is gonna be better than this,” Nadira says. “Weren’t they supposed to start like ten minutes ago?”

“Our All Star game is gonna be fantastic.”

“Honestly, if Brad doesn’t let me go to DC for that, I’m gonna fucking quit.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Connor says.

“Okay, listen here, hockey player who makes a stupid amount of money,” Nadira says, “some of us need our shitty jobs.”

Connor leans over to give her a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Ugh, I do need to find a different job, though,” Nadira says.

“Really?” Sarah asks.

Okay, so, Sarah definitely knew that Nadira isn’t happy with her current job. There’s no way that anyone would be happy with that job, especially when you have to work with people like that Brad guy. Obviously Nadira wants to find something else, but when she does, who knows if her new job will be in the area?

Sarah doesn’t like the thought of Nadira leaving. Even though she clearly doesn’t stand a chance with Nadira, they’re still friends, and Sarah has never been good at losing her friends.

“Well…” Nadira shrugs. “There  _has_  to be something better out there.”

“You deserve something better,” Connor says.

Nadira nods. “I so do. Like, Brad gets to go to the All Star game and he gets to have all the fun and I’m not even allowed to officially report on the Panthers’ away games. All I do are those tiny recaps for the website. It’s so boring.” She reaches over Connor to pat Sarah’s arm. “Not that your games are boring… It’s just my job that sucks.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Sarah says.

“What are you looking for?” Alex asks.

“Any hockey-related writing where I don’t have to work with Brad.”

Sarah and Alex share a look.

“What?” Connor asks.

Nadira sighs. “What they mean by that look that clearly says  _Nadira is delusional_  is that the Brads are everywhere and I won’t find a job without one, but,” she gives both Alex and Sarah a look, “I might be able to find a job where I don’t have to interact with a Brad constantly. Anyway, I– Oh, fucking finally.”

“Here we go,” Connor says. “Hey, there’s Rivs.”

“Wow, does he actually look like he’s enjoying himself?” Alex says dryly.

“You should have seen him yesterday,” Nadira says. “He nailed that target competition.”

Connor nods. “It was ridiculous. I mean, he’s my teammate. I know that he’s ridiculous, but still. Shane texted me once it was over, I think he almost cried.”

Nick scores twenty seconds into the game with an assist from the Philadelphia Foxes’ captain Boris Markov. It’s one of the most beautiful passes that Sarah has ever seen. She wouldn’t want to be in that goal right now. Actually, that’s a lie, she would be delighted to be in that goal.

The guys on the ice celebrate like they just scored the game winner in double overtime in a playoff game. Nick slips after he scores and Markov and the Comets’ D-man Brady Hart pile on top of him. Markov smooches Nick’s helmet before they return to the bench.

Connor snorts and picks up his phone.

“Texting Nick?” Alex asks.

“Yeah,” Connor replies with a sly grin. He shakes his head as he types. “Can you believe he just went and adopted a cat?”

“It’s a cute cat,” Nadira says.

“Super adorable,” Sarah agrees. “Will definitely try to steal it. Not that I’ve ever been to Nick’s house or expect to ever be invited there, but…” She shrugs. She loves it when her friends get new pets, because she’s not the sort of person who’d ever get her own pet. Okay, maybe one day, but definitely not in the foreseeable future. It’s the same with kids.

Being responsible for another living being is terrifying and Sarah is in no way ready for that.

As the game goes on, the Atlantic scores four more goals and the Metro tries to catch up, but in the end they don’t stand a chance. Yoshi scores his third goal of the game one minute before it’s over and Nick and Boris give him a shower on the bench.

It takes a while for the Pacific vs Central game to start and the network shows a segment on all four teams with locker room interviews and behind the scenes footage. It’s a lot of hockey superstars signing each other’s sticks and taking pictures, but there’s also an interview with the coaches, where they answer questions about which lines they’d like to try but probably won’t and which players they’d like to steal from other teams.

“I’d love to have Nick Rivera,” coach Zach Goldman says.

“Wasn’t Nick in the Pacific last year?” Sarah asks.

Nadira nods. “Oh, he totally was. Like, not to read anything into this, but I’m pretty sure that was a not super subtle dig at the Lions for trading him.”

“I’m sure it was,” Alex grumbles. “He’s good at those not super subtle digs.”

The interview ends with the Seals’ Adrian Nissen getting tackled by the Sailors’ Blake MacDonald in the background. The feed cuts to commercials and Sarah picks up the chips again.

“Just to warn you,” Alex says lowly, “the Sailors will be in town next week.”

“That sounds ominous, do I have to be scared?” Connor asks. “I think we have a pretty good chance at winning against the Sailors if we don’t let MacDonald score too much.”

“MacDonald is a beast.” Nadira makes a face. “He just murdered Nissen right there on TV and no one even blinked. Like, he’s  _huge_.”

“A very large man, indeed,” Sarah says.

“Very large, hmmm? Sarah, darling, do I detect a hint of admiration there?” Nadira laughs.

“What? He’s… a very good player,” Sarah says. And also very handsome.

Connor gives her knee a pat, a huge grin on his face. “Do you want his number? I can totally get it for you.”

“I think I’m good,” Sarah says.

“Can I have his number?” Nadira asks. “I just want to ask him a few questions. Like, what it’s like to be that amazing at hockey. I mean, he’s a legend. Future hall of famer, definitely. I hope he’s lucky and gets to play a few more years.”

“How old is he?” Sarah asks.

“Thirty-five,” Waldo replies.

Sarah almost wants to laugh. She wishes she could play until she’s 35, but she’s already not sure if she’ll play another season or not.

“You know, the kind of numbers MacDonald is still putting up… Nick’s probably gonna be like that, too,” Alex says.

“For sure.”

Connor snorts. “Nick will never retire anyway.”

“He’s gonna go into coaching,” Alex throws in. “I mean, when you see him on the bench… He clearly has a lot to say.”

“Yeah, you should  _hear_  him on the bench,” Connor says.

The game ends with the Central only barely making it past the Pacific and they’re headed for yet another break before the final game. Sarah reaches for the cookie bowl.

“What I’ve been trying to say, though,” Alex says, “about the Sailors playing in Hartford on Thursday… Don’t be surprised if my dad shows up unexpectedly. I’m pretty sure he has a key for the house.”

“What?” Nadira says.

“He knows that you live here, don’t worry. Or at least I’m pretty sure that my mom told him.”

“Haha. Okay. Sure.”

“Nadi?”

“He’s Zach Goldman,” Nadira whispers.

“Yeah.”

Nadira shakes her head. “What the fuck, your dad is actually Zach Goldman.”

“Did you realize that just now?” Connor asks.

“I don’t know.” Nadira grabs a handful of popcorn. “I mean, I knew. But. I never realized that he might show up here.”

“Well, let’s all hope that he doesn’t,” Alex says.

“Dude.”

“Shh.”

Sarah decides not to get involved, because she’s also caught herself hoping her mom wouldn’t come over, and wouldn’t call, and would just stop bugging her in the past. She gets it, at least a little bit. She gets what it’s like when you didn’t turn out to be the person one of your parents always wanted you to be.

*

“Has anyone seen Nadira? I need to talk to her. Urgently.”

Nadira freezes with her hand in the donut box in the break room. Jessica Norris is looking for her.  _Urgently_.

She is already having A Day, because, well, it’s Wednesday and the Sailors are scheduled to arrive in Hartford today for their game against the Cardinals tomorrow, which means Zach Goldman could show up at Alex’s at any given moment, and then she might have to talk to him and she’d totally put her foot in her mouth, because that’s just who she is.

Nadira should probably make herself known, but she’s afraid that her ass is about to get fired for some mystery reason. She grabs her coffee so she has something to hold on to. “I’m in here.”

“Ah…” Jessica appears in the doorway a moment later, smiling at her.

If she’s smiling, she’s probably not going to fire Nadira, right?”

“Nadira, I’m so glad you’re here. Whatever Brad told you to do today, forget all about it,” Jessica says. “Brad just called in sick, so I need you to drive to Silver Lakes for the Cardinals practice, all right?”

Nadira is completely lost for words for several long seconds. She swallows hard. “All right?”

“You got this, right?” Jessica asks. “I know you cover the Panthers, so I’m assuming I have no reason to worry?”

“Not at all,” Nadira says and straightens her jacket. “I was supposed to write something on the Cedar Mills High hockey team today, they’re on a seven game win streak, can I pass that on to our intern?”

“Oh, sure, if you think he’s up to the challenge.”

“I’m sure he is,” Nadira says.

Jessica nods, snatches a donut, and leaves Nadira to it.

Nadira stares at the door for a moment, looks around to make sure that she’s really alone, and then does a quick and extremely graceful happy dance before she makes sure that she looks presentable and strides out of the break room.

Don shoots her the smallest of smiles, like he knows that she’s been waiting for an opportunity like this ever since she started working here and is actually somewhat happy for her. He probably doesn’t care that he’s not the one who’s about to drive out to Silver Lakes, because he’s never covered hockey. Don is their baseball guy and he’s happy being the baseball guy, although he does often like to pretend that he knows everything about every sports team in the area, which is especially annoying when he acts like he knows more about the Panthers than Nadira does.

Nadira grabs her notes for the high school team article and takes them over to Charlie’s desk.

“Sup,” Nadira says and dumps her notes, “this article is yours now. I’ll send you the audio file of the interview I did with their coach yesterday and the quotes I got from the team captain. It has to be done by tomorrow. I’ll be around later if you have any questions, okay?”

Charlie only blinks up at her. “I get to write this?”

“Yeah. Because Brad is sick, so I’m headed to Silver Lakes.”

Charlie’s eyes go so wide that they might fall out of his head any moment now. “You’re covering practice?”

“Yeah. Guess I am. And I really gotta go, so I won’t be late. Wish me luck.”

Charlie nods quickly and waves as Nadira speed-walks back to her desk, sends Charlie whatever else he might need, and then grabs her keys and her  _Gazette_  ID before she hurries out the door.

She’s going to Silver Lakes.

To cover practice. And interview the Cardinals.

Nadira has actually never been to the Cardinals’ practice facility in Silver Lakes, but she finds it without any problems and gets there just in time. It’s a nice enough rink, but it’s nowhere near as beautiful as the Goldmans’ rink in Cedar Mills. Alex has put so much love and effort into his rink and it’s hard to miss. Even if you walked in with your eyes closed, you’d feel it in the air, she’s sure.

She’s not too nervous in the beginning. She’s covered NHL hockey before, back in New York when she got sent to write a feature on the Ravens here and there, but she usually just filled in. Even back in New York, her major task was to cover the women’s league.

It doesn’t really occur to her that she might have to interview Nick or Connor until she walks into the locker room and hears a high-pitched, “Oh my God, Nadiiii,” behind her.

Nadira turns around and finds Connor beaming at her. Right. She saw both Nick and Connor on the ice, but they obviously had no idea that she was coming.

Nadira quickly waves at him, but then makes her way further into the locker room. Nick, Santa and Jordie are all on media duty, and, honestly, Nadira wants to interview all of them, but she has to see Nick’s face when she shows up at his media scrum, so she makes her way to his locker and gets her phone ready to record.

The Cardinals have already played a game since the All Star break – they lost against the Scorpions last night. The first question Nick gets thrown his way is a stupid question about what it feels like to lose against the worst team in the league. It’s obviously worded differently, but Nick can read between the lines and he gives the reporter who asked the most unexcited look ever.

“What can you do so your game against the Sailors tomorrow will have a different result?”

If Nadira had to guess, she’d say that Nick has had to answer very similar questions after pretty much every game he’s ever lost and the answer he gives is at first generic, with a quick mention of something specific to the Sailors at the end. Nick must have had excellent media training. Nothing really throws him off.

Nadira can tell when he spots her, right at the very beginning, because his lips twitch the tiniest bit, almost like he wants to smile.

She has to wait for a little while until she gets to ask her question, but Nick looks directly at her when she says his name. “What do you think makes the Sailors especially hard to beat this season and how can you as a team make sure you take home those two points tomorrow?”

The Sailors are a serious Cup contender already, but they have been for a while. In fact, they have been fantastic ever since they hired Zach Goldman as their head coach. They made the playoffs every single year, but they’ve never won the Cup. Well. They haven’t won the Cup yet. They’re currently leading the West in points and with a win tomorrow, they’d be leading the league.

Nick thinks for a moment and he doesn’t look like he hates her question, which is great, because Nadira doesn’t want to be one of those people who asks something that has a very obvious answer.

“I think for the Sailors it’s a combination of, uh, a bunch of things… like their speed and, well, their third and fourth line have been a real asset, it’s a bunch of confident guys, and I think to beat them, we have to play an offensive game and make sure to keep them away from our net.”

A few questions later, there’s some shuffling on Nadira’s right and Santa squeezes himself into the scrum, holding out a water bottle as a microphone. “Nick,” Santa says, “when will you show us a picture of your cat?”

“I’ll share one at a later time,” Nick says.

The cat question brings on a few more All Star game questions, but everyone eventually disperses.

Nadira already drafted half her article while she was waiting for the players to be available, so now she only has to add her quotes and she’ll be done. Before she leaves, Waldo comes over to her.

“Do you want an exclusive interview with me?” he asks.

“I’d love that,” Nadira says and holds up her phone, recording. “What are your thoughts on Nick Rivera’s cat?”

Connor laughs. “Well, you know, I haven’t been introduced to her yet, because Nick hates fun.”

“This is your second matchup against the Sailors this season,” Nadira says, “is there anything you learned last time that’ll be helpful tomorrow?”

“Oh, definitely. They’re a fast team, you know, and we have fast guys, too, so it’ll be important to keep an eye on who’s on the ice and who we need to put out there to face off against them.”

“As a player who grew up going to Cardinals games, is it exciting for you to have Zach Goldman in the building, even though he works for the opposing team?”

“Absolutely, he was an incredible player and I’d honestly be delighted to talk to him. I was a big fan growing up.”

Connor gives her a look after that answer and Nadira doesn’t have to guess what it means – both of them might meet Zach Goldman if Alex was right and he does drop by while he’s in Hartford.

“Thanks so much, Connor,” Nadira says and ends the recording.

“Anytime.” He gently punches her shoulder. “Nadi, bro, what are you doing here?”

“Brad is sick.” Nadira does try not to sound happy about it, but she is and Connor can probably see it on her face. What if he’s sick for more than one day? Does she get to cover the game tomorrow if Brad can’t? “Lucky me.”

Nick comes up to them, holding his phone in one hand and a water bottle in the other. “Hey, good to see you, thanks for not asking me what losing 6-1 against the Scorpions felt like.”

“Sure,” Nadira says.

Nick nods and wanders off to talk to Yoshi.

Nadira would so love to interview Yoshi, but she has work to do and Yoshi clearly isn’t available to the media today. Captain needs a break too every now and then.

“I’ll see you later,” Connor whispers to her as she leaves.

Nadira waves at him and hurries out the door.

It’s only the beginning of February, but this year is already going her way.


	55. stars, Chapter 11.4

**stars**

 

**Chapter 11.4**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

I’m happy to announce that I’ve finally met the one and only Emily Rivera

instagram.com/p/7uJk3w

*

Alex knows that his dad is going to drop by at some point today. He didn’t give Connor and Nadira a fair warning, because he’s only suspecting it. No, he is actually convinced that he’ll be seeing his dad at some point today.

He doesn’t go to the rink, because it’s Wednesday, so he runs a few errands, does the grocery shopping and chases Byron around the yard until his knee starts to hurt and he has to give himself a break. Byron comes over to him when he sits down on the low stone wall next to the terrace at the back of the house. His breath comes out in a cloud when he lets out a deep sigh.

“Sorry, buddy,” Alex says and scratches Byron behind the ears, “no more running.”

Byron puts his head on his knees, tail wagging.

“Good boy.”

They stay there for a couple of minutes, then Byron barks and takes off, only a few steps, waiting for Alex to follow.

Now, going by the time, it might be Connor who’s coming home right now, but it might as well be Alex’s dad. Alex isn’t sure if he wants to find out, but he needs to head inside either way, because his ass is going to freeze if he sits here for much longer. He convinces himself to get up and goes inside, hopefully not hobbling too badly.

The first thing he hears when he walks into the kitchen, though, is, “Hey, you okay?”

Connor, still in his parka, is standing by the open fridge, pulling out leftovers.

“Sure,” Alex says, but immediately sits down at the breakfast bar.

“Okay, it just looked like–”

“I’m fine,” Alex interrupts. “How was practice?”

“Practice was– Oh my God, did you know that Nadira’s colleague is sick and she got to cover for him? She interviewed me at the rink today.” Connor smiles broadly. “She did such a good job.”

Alex laughs. “Yeah, she sent me a text about that. She didn’t tell me that she got to talk to you, though.”

“Oh, yeah, she was in the middle of Nick’s media scrum, too.” Connor takes a cold piece of chicken out of a box, looks at the microwave, back at the chicken, and then takes a bite without heating it up. “I hope she gets to cover the game tomorrow, too. They grow up so fast. Aw, buddy…” He quickly hides his chicken behind his back when Byron sits down at his feet, staring up at him with his  _I haven’t been fed in at least two years_  eyes.

“Byron. No. Come on.”

Byron only wags his tail, but doesn’t go anywhere.

“Sweetiepie,” Connor says and reaches down with his free hand. “Alex, can I at least give him a treat? Please?”

“Fine, just one, though.” Alex reaches around for the drawer with the dog treats and hands one of them to Connor. “Do you have any plans for tonight?”

“Nope,” Connor says. “Wanna watch Shane’s game with me? They’re in Montreal, so it doesn’t start too late.”

“Yeah, sure,” Alex says. “I’m gonna make dinner tonight, okay?”

“Really?” Connor asks and he looks pretty relieved, and it’s sort of funny to Alex. He honestly wonders how Connor survived during the past couple of years. Maybe Shane is good at cooking, although Alex didn’t get that impression when they first met.

“Really,” Alex says. “Chicken parmesan?”

Connor gently shuts the fridge, walks over to Alex and gives him a hug. Byron barks and they both jump when the doorbell rings.

Alex lets go of Connor. “Hey, you wanna go answer the door and pretend I’m not here? Actually, just pretend I don’t live here at all.”

“You think it’s your dad?”

“Probably.”

“Would he ring the doorbell?” Connor asks.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in a while.”

“How long is  _a while_?”

“Uh…” Alex honestly can’t remember. His dad dropped in the last time the Sailors were playing against the Cardinals. He just showed up at the rink that day and everyone obviously freaked out, because, wow, Zach Goldman was there. At least Alex didn’t have to interact with him all that much that day.

“I see,” Connor says. “I guess I’ll… go…?”

“No, don’t go anywhere,” Alex says and drags Connor to the door with him. He’s glad he’s not home alone. Byron follows them, squeezing past them to make a run for the door.

It is indeed Zach Goldman who’s waiting outside the door, looking somewhat impatient. Alex isn’t sure what the hell he was expecting – maybe he was hoping that someone else was dropping by unexpectedly.

Alex pulls the door open. “Dad. I thought you had a key.”

“It’s in Seattle,” Zach says and pulls Alex into a hug. “Haven’t seen you in a while, kid. How are you?”

“I’m good,” Alex says. He pulls away and nods at Connor. “This is Connor Walden, I’m guessing Mom has told you–”

“Yes, of course.” Zach shakes Connor’s hand. “Nice to see you.”

“Yeah,” Connor only says, nodding slowly.

Zach pats Alex on the back. “I went to the rink first. Ran into the Engel boy, he told me it’s your day off.”

“It is.”

“Well, I’d invite you out for dinner, but I assume you already have plans.” Zach smiles in an  _I’m on to you_  kind of way. “You usually do.”

Alex doesn’t reply. Watching hockey with Connor isn’t much of a plan, but it’s a good enough excuse. He won’t sit through a two-hour dinner if he can help it.  

“Anyway,” Zach says, “just wanted to come by and catch up.”

“Sure. Would you like a cup of coffee?” Alex asks.

“Absolutely, sounds great.” Zach pats Byron’s head in passing as he walks into the kitchen. “I’ll take care of the coffee. Connor, do you drink coffee?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Great,” Zach says and then he’s off.

Connor looks at Alex with the widest eyes. “Duuuude…” He clears his throat. “Sorry, is it bad that I’m excited?”

“No,” Alex says and shuffles into the living room. Connor and Bryon both follow him and soon enough Zach shows up with two cups of coffee and a cup of tea, which he hands to Alex.

He’s not sure why he’s surprised that his dad remembers what kind of tea he likes. Alex drank that kind pretty much every day the year after his accident when he was home, trying to keep it together, his mom taking him from one physical therapy appointment to another.

“Thanks,” Alex says and passes a cup of coffee along to Connor. He knows he should have at least a few things to say to his dad, but he can’t think of a single thing. When he was younger, the only thing they ever really talked about was hockey. Sometimes they talked about school. On occasion his friends came up in a conversation.

“Rink looks great,” Zach says.

Alex nods.

“I assume you still enjoy working there.”

This is exactly why Alex hates talking to his dad. Because he just won’t stop bugging him about the rink. Alex has only been working at the rink for about two and a half years. Maybe a little longer. Almost three. He likes it. And if he ever wants to do something else, he’ll find something else. For now, though, he’s perfectly happy. “I do,” Alex says gruffly.

Zach nods, like that was exactly what he was expecting. He gives Alex that quietly disappointed look. Alex knows that his dad would help him find a different job in a heartbeat, but he doesn’t want that, not yet, maybe not ever.

After that, Zach turns to Connor and asks him how he’s liking the Cardinals. “You’ve been playing very differently with Santana. Nice when it clicks, isn’t it?”

Connor smiles. “It is.”

Zach turns back to Alex. “Have you talked to Nick Rivera lately? He was always at the rink with you, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him around.”

“They miss him dearly in Los Angeles,” Zach says with a smirk.

Connor laughs.

“Admittedly, it’s lucky for us that he’s not in our Conference anymore. I talked to him at the All Star game last weekend and he seems to like it here. Well, I’m not actually surprised. I also liked it here.”

Connor is only looking at Zach in awe, so Alex takes pity on him and says, “Hey, Waldo, maybe you guys should take a picture together, you know, he was a Cardinal, you’re one now…”

“Great idea,” Zach says and hands his phone to Alex. “I do have a Twitter, you know?”

“Do you know how to use it?” Alex asks.

“Of course,” Zach says. “Your mother taught me.”

Alex snorts. “Obviously.”

“You know, if you know how to use the Twitter, there are a lot of jobs out there, that–”

“Dad,” Alex says. “Come on.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You called it  _the_  Twitter.”

“Well,  _I_  don’t want a job like that.”

“Still liking Seattle, then?” Alex asks. He remembers when his dad first took that coaching position. Zach was coaching the Grizzlies’ farm team up in Springfield before he got offered the job in Seattle. His mom was reluctant to leave; Alex had to promise her that he’d be fine so many times he lost count. She didn’t go to Seattle with Alex’s dad immediately, just to make sure that Alex would really be okay.

“Seattle is good. Great bunch of guys. Your mom likes it, too. She’s doing all sorts of charity projects.”

“That’s nice,” Alex says. His phone vibrates in his pocket. “Sorry, I should check that.”

It’s a text from Nick.

 

**[Nick]**

_Can I come to the rink tonight? I know this is on short notice, so no worries if I can’t._

“Looks like I’ll have to head to the rink in a bit,” Alex says. He tells Nick that he can have the outdoor rink at eight if he wants it. He doesn’t have time to cancel the public skate for Nick; he doesn’t like doing that on the same day unless there really is no other way.

“Don’t worry about it,” Zach says and turns to Connor. “I’m sure Connor and I have more than enough to talk about.”

“Okay, well… I might not make it back in time for the game.”

“It’s fine,” Connor says.

“What game?”

“Hawks.”

“Still keeping up with your former team?” Zach asks.

“Yeah, I still have friends on the team,” Connor replies. “I mean, do you still watch Cardinals games sometimes?”

Zach grins. “When I have time.”

It seems that Alex doesn’t have to be worried about his dad staying at the house, because Connor clearly has this covered.

“Hey,” Zach says when Alex gets up to leave. He reaches out to give Alex a hug. “Maybe you’ll make it to Seattle for a couple of days at some point. I’d love to show you around.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Alex says, because he’s definitely not going to commit to going to Seattle, even if it’s just for a couple of days.

Zach pats his back. “See you soon, kiddo.”

“Sure. Oh, and, Dad? Stick around until Nadi gets back, okay? I’m sure she’d love to meet you.”

Maybe Zach actually does look surprised for a second there. “Absolutely.”

*

The rink is busy when Nick arrives. There are a hockey game and a public skate in the two indoor rinks tonight. Alex sent him a text to tell him that he could skate on the outdoor rink if he wanted to and Nick honestly doesn’t care much what ice he skates on.

Nick only brought his skates, a pair of gloves and a stick today. He just wants to get a little practice in. It’s one of those days.

The outdoor rink isn’t exactly brightly lit – it’s just for public skates and for the occasional pick-up game in the afternoon. Someone’s sitting on one of the benches outside the rink where people can put on their skates. It’s Alex; Nick can tell by the way he sits for some reason.

“Hey,” Nick says, “I didn’t think you’d be here. Isn’t it your day off?”

Alex hums. “Rink’s all yours. I’ll go in and watch the game.”

“Did your dad come by?” Nick asks.

“How’d you know?”

“Sailors are in town and you have a tendency to avoid your parents.”

“Ah, Nicky, you know me so well,” Alex says and stands up.

“Maybe you should talk to him and tell him what bothers you instead of just avoiding him whenever you can,” Nick says carefully. He knows that this is a thing that Alex does, it’s why they didn’t talk until New Year’s Eve. Alex just so loves to run away from whatever bothers him.

Alex’s dad is actually a really nice guy, and an excellent coach, too, although that probably means very little to Alex. He didn’t need a coach when he was a kid, he needed a dad, but apparently Zach Goldman had trouble being both.

“Yeah, thanks for the suggestion.”

Nick shrugs.

“I’ll see you later. These are for you, by the way,” Alex says, nods at a bucket full of pucks, and wanders off, back to the main building.

Nick puts on his skates and his gloves, grabs his stick and a couple of pucks, and gets on the ice. It’s smooth and untouched and Nick just goes around for a couple of laps before he starts doing stickhandling drills. He sticks around for a while and doesn’t stop to check what time it is.

When Nick heads into the rink to pay for his ice time, he drops his gear on the backseat of his car. The game Alex was talking about is apparently still in full swing. Ashley is in the front office and she waves at Nick when he comes in through the door.

“Are you done outside?”

Nick nods, but he’s a little distracted by Alex, who’s in the middle of the hallway with a hockey stick and small green ball. He’s pushing the ball back and forth, Byron sitting a few feet away, tail wagging.

“All right,” Alex says and lobs the ball towards the door, “go get it!”

Byron zooms after the ball, right past Nick, and gets the ball. He carries it back to Alex and drops it by his feet.

Alex pats his head. “Good boy.”

“Alex, I’ll go take care of the rink outside, will you be here for a few more minutes?” Ashley asks.

“Sure.” Alex holds out his stick to Nick. “You wanna have a go?”

Nick laughs and quickly walks over to Alex to grab the stick. Maybe he got a little too excited there.

“Tell him to sit and then take the ball,” Alex says.

“Sit,” Nick says to Byron and he obeys immediately. Nick pulls the ball away with the blade of the stick and passes the ball back and forth, then between his legs, and back and forth again.

Alex huffs. “Show-off.”

Nick laughs and lets the ball go. “Get it!”

Byron retrieves it for him and drops it at his feet, like he did for Alex.

“Well done,” Nick says and kneels down to pet Byron. “You’re so talented. Such a good boy.”

“Shit, you’re even worse than Waldo.”

“Shhh, he  _is_  a good boy.”

“I know,” Alex says.

“Can I go again?” Nick asks, stick still in hand.

Alex shrugs. “Sure.”

Nick throws the ball for Byron a few more times, Alex leaning against the wall, watching them with a small smile. It’s good to see Alex smile; he used to smile so much back when they were kids and Nick misses that Alex sometimes.  

“How’s Emily?” Alex asks.

“Oh,” Nick says and reflexively pulls his phone out of his hoodie pocket. “Here…” He took a few pictures of her earlier. She was sleeping on the couch, rolled up into a black fuzzy ball and Nick took about twenty photos.

Alex laughs, but he does comes closer to look at the pictures. “She’s cute.”

“She is.” Nick loves her so much. When he did that interview at the All Star game, she was just hanging out in his lap for the entire interview and didn’t really feel like leaving when they were done, and Nick realized that this was exactly what he needed. She’ll curl up next to him on the couch and sleep in his bed, and Nick actually feels a little bad that he’ll be leaving on a roadie soon, but he’s hired a cat sitter and Emily should be just fine.

“I can’t believe you only adopted one of the Bronte sisters, though.”

“Only one of the  _what_?”

Alex shakes his head. “Never mind.”

Nick elbows Alex in the arm. He has no idea what Alex is talking about. “No, come on, now I want to know.”

“Well, the cats at your interview… They were called Emily, Anne and Charlotte. Those are the Bronte sisters.”

“And who are they?”

“Nick.”

“What?”

“They’re pretty famous authors.”

“Oh,” Nick says. “Guess I should have gone to college, huh?”

Alex shrugs. “Well, now you know.”

Nick smiles at him. “You should come by sometime and say hello. Waldo did after practice today.”

“Sure,” Alex says after a moment of hesitation. “Yeah.” And then he smiles again and Nick suddenly feels a little lighter. “Well, I should pay and head home.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that real quick,” Alex says and heads into the front office.

Nick follows him, and Byron picks up his ball, trails after Nick and drops it at his feet again. “Aw…”

“Yeah. He’ll keep doing that. And he’ll look really, really sad when you put away the stick. Poor puppy.”

“It’s okay, I’ll keep throwing the ball,” Nick says.

Alex laughs quietly and takes Nick’s credit card. “Don’t fall for it. He’ll remember and he’ll bug you for the rest of your life, because he’ll know that you’re weak for the puppy eyes.”

“Isn’t everyone weak for the puppy eyes?”

Alex shrugs. “I guess.”

Ashley returns just when Alex is putting away the stick and the ball. Nick has gone back to petting Byron, because he really couldn’t handle that Byron didn’t get to play anymore.

“I’ll head home,” Alex says to Ashley. “You good?”

“Absolutely. You’re not even supposed to be here.”

Alex shrugs and grabs his keys from the desk in the office. “I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

“Bye, guys!”

Nick waves at her and follows Alex and Byron out the door.

“My car’s around the corner in the staff parking lot,” Alex says.

“Right, uh, I’m all the way down there…” Nick points at the far end of the parking lot. “Thanks for getting me ice time.”

“No worries.”

They walk a few more steps together, Byron trailing after them, the tags on his collar jingling. The night air is cold and crisp and it’s quiet. It’s one of those nights where the stars looks particularly bright.

“Hey, Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Do me a favor?”

“Sure,” Nick says without batting an eye. “What do you need?”

Alex smirks. “Win the game tomorrow.”

Nick almost wants to roll his eyes, almost wants to say,  _Really, do have to be like that?_  In the end, he just says, “That’s not just up to me, but I’ll do what I can.”

Alex gives him a nudge. “I appreciate it. See you soon,” he says and then whistles for Byron to follow him to his car.

“Yeah, see you soon,” Nick says, shaking his head as he heads over to his own car.

The drive home is a short one and when he unlocks the door, Emily is waiting for him by the door, meowing at him.

“Hey, you,” Nick says and picks her up. She starts purring and her bushy tail swings back and forth as Nick takes her into the kitchen with her. He dumps some leftovers on a plate and heats them up in the microwave.

He carries his food and Emily up to his room, because apparently she just really likes being carried and Nick is absolutely willing to do anything for this cat. He’s only had her for a couple of days, but he already loves her dearly.

When he’s done eating, Nick gets out of his clothes, pulls on one of his favorite shirts and climbs back into bed to watch a movie. Emily snuggles up to him and purrs softly.

If someone had told Nick that this would be his life a year ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.


	56. stars, Chapter 11.5

**stars**

 

**Chapter 11.5**

 

*

 **ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Cards win!! Final score: Cardinals – 6, Sailors – 0 #CONvsSEA

 

 **ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Thanks to Jordan Grenier you’re all getting a free donut with any purchase at @DannysDonuts in Silver Lakes tomorrow!

*

Nadira is still riding the high from her post-game interviews last night when she gets up in the morning. Brad was sick for two whole days and Nadira got to cover for him and those were the best two days of the year for her.

She has the day off today and Jessica said she’d give her a call in case she needed her to come in to cover for Brad again, but it appears as though Brad did show up at work, so Nadira decides that she needs to treat herself in some way today to deal with the fact that she doesn’t have to go to work today. She was so hoping she’d have to cover for Brad just one more time before the Cardinals leave on their next road trip after the game on Friday night.

In the morning, she does her video on the Cardinals’ game against the Schooners – the Cardinals absolutely murdered them in a 6-0 shutout and Nadira had a lot to yell about. Nick scored the most ridiculous goal on the power play last night with an assist from Yoshi. Nadira has looked at it from every angle and she still hasn’t figured out how Nick managed to get the puck into the net.

Connor is in the kitchen when Nadira comes up from the basement. She still has to edit her video, but she’s hungry now.

“Dude,” Nadira says. “ _Dude_.”

“I know, right?” Connor says, shaking his head as he peels a banana. Nadira is pretty sure that no one has ever looked this joyful while peeling fruit. He also has an omelet cooking on the stove.

“What a game.”

Connor holds up his fist and Nadira bumps it.

“Do you have practice today?” Nadira asks.

“Yeah, why?”

“I just have the day off and I was thinking about maybe going to  _Giuliana’s_  for lunch,” Nadira says with a shrug.

“Aw, sorry,” Connor says. “I’m free tonight if you wanna hang out. We can go visit Alex at the rink and… skate. Do you even like skating or do you just like yelling at us from afar?”

“Um, I like both,” Nadira replies. “Not that good at skating, though. Sarah tried to teach me and I wasn’t exactly successful.”

Connor laughs and says, “Okay, rule number one, you need to eat an omelet for breakfast.” He shovels his omelet onto a plate and hands it to Nadira. “Eat this one.”

“But that’s yours,” Nadira says.

“Well, now it’s yours. I’ll just make myself another one.”

“Thank you, Waldo, you’re the best.”

“I know,” Connor says and gets more eggs out of the fridge. It seems that Alex has already left and has taken Byron with him, since he’s not lurking in the kitchen, waiting for food to drop.

“Guess I’ll take myself to  _Giuliana’s_ ,” Nadira says with a shrug. She grabs a fork and starts shoveling the omelet into her mouth. “I’m a strong independent woman who can go out for lunch on her own.”

“Yeah,” Connor says and high-fives her.

“Yeah,” Nadira says, and wishes Connor a good day, and then wanders off to get her video up on YouTube.

Once she resurfaces from the basement, Connor has apparently left for practice, so Nadira watches HGTV for a bit and then talks herself into getting into her car to drive to  _Giuliana’s_  for some extra nice pasta and those little garlic bread balls she likes so much.

Quite frankly, she’s mostly going for the garlic bread balls, but she might as well eat something else while she’s there.

 _Giuliana’s_  is usually a popular destination for lunch, so Nadira isn’t surprised when she doesn’t get a parking spot right outside the door and has to park in the big parking lot down the street. She walks past the stores lining main street, trying not to look too hard at what’s on display. She’s trying to save up money. For whatever comes next.

She can’t keep working at the  _Gazette_. Not with Brad working there as well. So she’ll do what she did in New York. Look for something new, send out her resume, and hope for the best. Only this time she won’t be broke, because she’ll still have a job while she does it.

The first thing she sees when she walks into Giuliana’s is the out-of-this-world chocolate cake, the second thing is Sarah. Having lunch. With a blonde woman who looks vaguely familiar.

Nadira stares at them for a moment, and since people often notice when you stare at them, Sarah eventually looks at her, her eyes going wide. She waves Nadira over with a smile, and Nadira joins them with great reluctance. She feels like she just barged in on something she wasn’t supposed to see.

Is Sarah out on a date with that other woman? She’s pretty. Beautiful. Probably also smart. She looks like one of those perfect people that Nadira has always been slightly scared of. People who look like they have everything under control. They love their jobs. Their personal lives aren’t a complete mess. Their eyebrows are impeccable. She’s totally one of those people. And Nadira is insanely jealous. Mostly because she’d also love to be one of those people, but also because she wants to be this specific perfect person who’s having lunch with Sarah right now.

“Um, hi,” Nadira says.

“Hey, Nadi,” Sarah says and pulls out a chair. “Have a seat.”

Nadira isn’t quite sure if she wants to, because she feels like she’s intruding, but Sarah’s blonde friend is smiling at her, so maybe she doesn’t mind being interrupted. “How’s it going? This is my friend Maya, she’s an assistant coach for my old college hockey team.”

“Nice to meet you,” Maya says.

“This is Nadira, she covers the Panthers for a paper in Hartford.” Sarah grins. “And the Cardinals.”

“Not anymore,” Nadira says.

“Aw, really, he’s back already?” Sarah asks. She quickly explains to Maya that Nadira was covering the Cardinals during her colleague’s absence. She doesn’t mention any names, though.

“But usually you cover the Panthers?” Maya asks.

“Yeah, the home games at least.”

“Glad women’s hockey is getting covered at all. I used to play down in DC, you know? I was one of the first players to sign with them when the league expanded six years ago. I was only there for two years, but we had a great time down there. Didn’t get as much coverage as the Eagles, of course…”

Nadira knows why Maya looked so familiar. Because she’s Maya Davis. She won an Olympic medal the same year that Sarah did. Four years ago. She retired afterwards.

“Anyway, I’m just here to catch up,” Maya says, “and maybe also to tell Sarah about the assistant coaching position we might need to fill over in East Harbor in the fall.”

“Oh,” Nadira says.

“Listen, I’ve never been a coach in my entire life.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you been coaching at summer camps for the past couple of years?”

“I mean, yes, but…” Sarah shakes her head. “Come on.”

“I just thought I’d mention it. The men’s hockey team will be looking for new staff members soon, too, if that’s more up your alley,” Maya says and picks up her menu. “All right, so what are you recommending?”

Nadira clears her throat. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Oh, you should stay,” Sarah says. “Have lunch with us.”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Maya chimes in.

“Actually, I have to get some work done, so I just wanted to buy some lunch to go and head back home. Sorry.”

“Well, let’s hang out soon, okay?” Sarah says.

“Sure, yeah,” Nadira says and grabs her bag. “Bye, nice to meet you, Maya.”

Nadira stops by the counter in the front of the restaurant to buy garlic bread balls and pasta to go and then takes it all back home. That wasn’t the plan, but she can feel a crisis coming and she needs to deal with that.

She just really hated the thought of Sarah having dinner with some woman. Even though they were former teammates. And likely nothing more than friends. Nadira has always been a little more jealous than she would like to be and today the tiny monster that starts screaming bloody murder in her brain whenever she’s jealous woke up and started throwing a rave.

Nadira really isn’t a fan of herself right now. She knows she needs to do something about the Sarah situation, preferably before Sarah decides to take some hypothetical job at her old college, which is– Okay, East Harbor is, what, a thirty-minute drive away? But still.

And, sure, Nadira actually was totally willing to leave town for a different job, like, an hour ago, but she’s starting to realize that it won’t be that easy. Not if Sarah is involved.  

*

Alex locks up the front office and stuffs the key into his pocket. Byron is waiting for him by the door. He was snoozing under the table and Alex, rude as he is, made him get up.

It’s late. Rink 2 is closed, the hockey team has left and the last public skate in Rink 1 ended a while ago, but Alex has been sweet-talked into keeping it open a little while longer. “We’re not going home yet, buddy,” Alex says and whistles.

Byron gets up slowly and ambles over to him, tail wagging half-heartedly. Alex leads him down the hall and they walk down the stands of Rink 1. Connor is on the ice with Nadira and Ashley. Finn is sitting on the boards by the home team’s bench and Andy is standing behind him, now out of his goalie gear, arms wrapped around Finn from behind.

“Hey, guys,” Alex says as he walks up to them.

“Alex,” Finn says and reaches out to give him a hug. “And my favorite puppy.”

“How’s it going?”

“Well,” Finn says and looks over at Ashley, who’s trying to teach Nadira how to skate backwards. “I was trying to teach Connor some nice tricks, but I got distracted because this one showed up.” He pats Andy’s arm.

Andy smiles and kisses Finn’s cheek.

Across the ice, Ashley lets out a squeal when Connor picks her up and spins around. He stops when he spots Alex and puts down Ashley to wave at him.

Alex waves back. “Do you think they’re going to murder me if I ask them to go home?”

Finn gives him a look. “I think they’ll be okay if you end their skating experience. That you gave them. For free. When the rink is technically closed. The rink. That you own.”

“Well, when you put it like that…”

“I’ll go get everyone,” Finn says. “Don’t worry about it.”

Connor skates over to them before Finn can even take off. “Did you see that? I’m basically a figure skater.”

“Of course, darling,” Finn says and gives Connor a pat.

“Ohhh, look who’s here.” Connor bends over the boards to pet Byron. “My bestest friend. The goodest boy. Hey, Finn, teach me more stuff, come on…”

“Uh, actually…” Finn says, eyes on Alex.

“Just go.” Alex sits down on the bench. “I don’t mind sitting here for a few more minutes.”

Finn gives Andy a kiss and then whisks Connor away.

Andy sits down next to Alex with the softest smile on his face. Andy doesn’t smile like that a lot, it’s either a huge grin or a frown, but right now he looks smitten.

“Oh, shut up,” Andy says when he notices that Alex is grinning at him.

Alex shrugs. “I’m glad you guys worked things out.”

“Yeah, well… I–” Andy shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“Well, you asked…” Andy takes a deep breath. “Okay, so, the thing is, he wants me to meet his parents and I don’t… I don’t do that sort of thing. Or, well, I haven’t.”

“Finn’s parents are great,” Alex says. “They’ll probably make way too much food for dinner and his dad always makes really bad jokes.”

“You know them?”

“Yeah, they live over in Silver Lakes.”

Andy hums. “I feel bad, because I’ll never introduce him to my parents.”

Alex doesn’t ask any questions. He doesn’t want to pry and he has a feeling that Andy might tell him without being poked and prodded.

“They’re… very religious,” Andy goes on. “I’ve never told them that I’m bi. I thought, you know, I’m still attracted to girls, so it doesn’t really matter, I just won’t date any guys. But it’s not really always that easy. And I wish I could take him home with me and introduce him to them like I did with the girl I was dating in high school.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

“Finn says he doesn’t care and I know that he means it when he says that it’s not a big deal to him, but… I care.” Andy shrugs. “Anyway. Sorry.”

Alex fiddles with the strings of his hoodie. “No, I mean, I… I get it. Not the bit with the religious parents, because mine really aren’t, but telling them has always seemed… daunting.”

Andy doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Telling them?”

“Yeah,” Alex says.

Andy nods. He gets it and Alex is glad that he doesn’t have to spell it out for him.  It was hard enough to say already. “Well, thanks for telling me,” Andy says.

Alex sucks in a deep breath. He just did that. And somehow the world is still turning. “How did you… You told everyone, right? The team knows? All your friends know?”

“Yeah.” Andy looks out at the ice with a smile. “Because I can pick my team and my friends. And if they don’t like who I am, they’re not really my team and my friends, are they?”

Alex hums. Maybe Andy has a point. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to make this about me.”

“Don’t even worry about it. Our guys here, they’re good guys.” Andy nods at everyone on the ice. “Those guys are good guys, too.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, “they are.”


	57. snow, Chapter 12.1

**snow**

 

**Chapter 12.1**

 

*

**CedarMillsRink**  @cedarmillsrink

Due to inclement weather, the rink will remain closed until further notice. We’ll keep you updated here and on Facebook. Stay safe!

*

“Guess you’re not the only one who doesn’t have to go to work today,” Ashley says as she shuffles into the kitchen.

Jamie is making breakfast. Big breakfast – eggs, bacon, pancakes, strawberries. It’s more of a Sunday thing, not a Tuesday thing, but the school district announced a snow day late last night, so Jamie apparently decided that he’d spend the day in the kitchen. There’s a muffin recipe on the counter and the Crockpot is out.

“Did Alex decide to keep the rink closed?”

“Yeah,” Ashley says. “Probably for the best.” It hasn’t started snowing yet, but the forecast for later today looks pretty grim. Alex sent out an email and texts to the entire staff this morning to tell them that the rink is staying closed today because of the weather.

“Well,” Jamie says, “I guess we’ll have more time to enjoy our breakfast today, then.”

Ashley smiles. “You need any help?”

“I’m good.” Jamie holds out a small pancake to her. “Here, try one of these.”

Ashley takes it with an appreciative hum. Jamie knows that she likes pancakes better when they’re cute and small.

“Anything you wanna do today?” Jamie asks. “I mean, other than fill every container we own with water?”

“Movie marathon until the power goes out?”

“I don’t like the way you talk about the power, Ash. Maybe it won’t go out.”

Ashley gives him a look. If it really gets as bad as they’re saying it will, there’s no way that the power will stay on. And then they’ll just hope that it comes back on soon. Or they’ll go to Alex’s place to shower. And maybe they’ll camp out in one of Alex’s guest rooms. They did that two years ago when their power was out for five days.

“So, it’s Tuesday,” Jamie says.

“It is.”

“Which means…”

“Taco truck,” Ashley finishes for him. “Yeah, if the weather isn’t too bad yet, we should get tacos for lunch. The taco guy won’t stick around until tonight if the weather gets yucky.”

“Yeah, we’re not gonna want to go anywhere tonight anyway,” Jamie says.

“We should get extra tacos. For later.”

“Okay, so… the plan is… muffins, then tacos, then movies. Hey, how about you stay here with the muffins while I get the tacos?”

“Sure,” Ashley says. Just as long as she doesn’t have to make them. She’s better at throwing an egg and some vegetable oil into a brownie mix. Jamie makes everything from scratch. Jamie wanted to be a baker when he was a kid and he started to learn how things work in the kitchen when he couldn’t even see over the top of the counter yet.

Ashley cleans up the kitchen after breakfast, because Jamie cooked for them and because Ashley likes her way of cleaning up a lot better than Jamie’s.

They try to get at least somewhat ready for the storm, grab all their blankets for the couch and the fake lava lamp that Jamie gave Ashley for Christmas, and then Jamie heads out to go to the taco truck. “Need to get my tacos before it’s too late,” he says before he leaves.

It’s still not snowing, but the clouds look heavy.

Dylan is sitting on the windowsill, looking extremely disgruntled. Ashley sits down on the armchair by the window with her laptop to be disgruntled with him, even though she doesn’t really have a reason to be disgruntled. Everything’s going well. She has the day off. And, sure, there’s a storm coming, but they can deal with a storm.  

Ashley opens her laptop. She has the website of the local community college open on it, but so far she hasn’t found a single course she likes. She doesn’t have too many options; she has a job after all.

It doesn’t help that she doesn’t know what she’s looking for.

Cooking classes? She probably needs those, but those won’t really bring her joy. Photography? Not her thing. Art? Would need a lot of supplies. Might be cool, but she doesn’t feel like it’ll help her with the gaping hole in her life in the end.

That sounds a little dramatic.

Ashley’s life is great. She has everything, including an Olympic medal. She has already accomplished so much, but she has so much life ahead of her and it feels like she has nothing left to accomplish.

She sighs and closes the community college’s website. She won’t find any answers there.

*

“Eyyy, that’s my favorite MVP,” Nessie says and salutes Sarah with her coffee mug.

“Shush,” Sarah says, shaking her head. She tries to hide that she’s grinning, but Nessie just knows her too damn well.

“MVP,” Nessie whispers as she pours coffee into Sarah’s favorite mug.

They both got an invitation to the All Star game in DC and they had a fantastic weekend with Pattie, Bee and Steph. Sarah won the MVP award at the end of the weekend and now Nessie apparently can’t remember her actual name.

“Okay, so apparently I’m not going to work today,” Sarah says.

“Hmm, I’m working from home today, but… still work.”

Sarah can’t really sharpen skates and drive the Zamboni from home, so it looks like she’s getting an extra day off. She pulls up the weather app on her phone. “Snow in an hour,” she says. And it goes on like that. 80% chance of snow, 90%, 100%, and then it’s just that for several hours. Snow, and snow, and snow. “They’re gonna cancel practice, aren’t they?”

“Probably,” Nessie says. “Hey, we should go to the bakery for breakfast. While we can still leave the house.”

“Excellent idea.”

“I’m in the mood for some good pastry. Let me put on a bra. Actually, let me get out of the pajama pants, too.” Nessie wanders off and returns with an empty mug, still wiggling into her pair of jeans. “Ready?”

“Sure.”

They get a seat by the window. Morning rush is already over. Or maybe there’s no morning rush today, because everyone’s predicting the apocalypse in a few hours. Quite frankly, Sarah feels like that’s all the more reason to have a nice breakfast.

They order coffee and pastries and then Nessie hands Sarah a pen.

“Really?” Sarah asks.

“Please? For me.”

“Fine…”

The first time they came here together, Nessie’s mom called and Nessie stepped outside for a little while and Sarah started drawing on a napkin. Nessie has been collecting her napkin drawings ever since. Most of them are on their fridge, but Nessie has also hung up a few of her favorite ones in her room.

“What do you want me to draw?” Sarah asks.

“A dinosaur,” Nessie says. “On skates.”

Sarah laughs and starts drawing, taking a sip of her latte every now and then. Nessie watches her, full of awe.

“You know, you can actually  _learn_  how to draw,” Sarah says. “It’s not magic. Just practice.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I have the patience for that.”

Sarah snorts and hands over the napkin.

“You should sell these.”

“Napkins?”

“Drawings.”

“I mean, I am. Occasionally. You know… I like that dinosaur. Maybe…” Sarah shakes her head. “We should put him on the fridge.”

Sometimes she gets those ideas. For comics. For stories. She’s not much of a writer, though. But little comic strips might be fun. About skating dinosaurs. She’ll have to think about that.

“Yeah, he’ll look nice between punk Cinderella and the rainbow squid.”

Sarah nods and takes a bite of her pastry. “Okay, so, I have to tell you about something.”

“Ohhh, a secret?”

“Well, not really, but sort of? It’s just something that has come up recently and I’ve been thinking about it and I need a second opinion.”

“Okay, sure.”

“I had lunch with Maya Davis before the All Star weekend. She was in Hartford to visit some friends and she decided to swing by. She’s coaching at East Harbor.”

“Aw, your old college,” Nessie says.

“Yeah.” Sarah picks up her pastry, but she doesn’t finish it just yet. “She told me that there might be a coaching position available in the fall. Assistant coach.”

“You wanna coach?” Nessie asks.

“I’ve done it before. Sort of.”

Nessie smiles. “You’d be good at it.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, totally,” Nessie says. “And she came here to tell you that, so they probably want you on their team. I mean, who wouldn’t want you on their team?”

“That’d mean retiring, though. For real this time.”

“Ah,” Nessie says. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

“So, what do you want me to tell you?”

“I want you to tell me what you think,” Sarah says. Because she isn’t sure what she’s thinking. It sounds so tempting. It seems like a sign from the universe.  _Here’s a chance to do something you’ll love. Take it._

But then she’d have to give up something else she loves.

If she plays for another year – and, honestly, right now she feels like she could – that coaching position at East Harbor will be someone else’s. And then what? Maybe she should go for it before it’s too late.

She isn’t sure why she feels like time is running out for her. She’s only twenty-five. There’s enough time.

More than enough.

*

“This is driving me absolutely insane,” Nadira says.

“Uh-huh…”

“Like, I can’t stop thinking about her.”

“Hm.”

“When I was at work yesterday, I had to write her name and then I just stared at it for ten minutes. It was horrible.”

“Yeah, sounds super terrible.”

“She’s just so beautiful. And she told me that she likes me and I fucked  _everything_  up.”

Alex sighs.

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Hm.”

“I mean, I need to do something, right?” Nadira goes on.

“Huh.”

“Alex, you’re not paying attention,” Nadira says.

“I’m sorry.” Alex resurfaces from behind the stack of wood. “I’m just trying to get enough wood into the house before the snow really starts. So we don’t freeze. I mean, we do have a generator, but… just in case.”

Nadira groans. “Sorry. Do you need help?”

“No, I’m good,” Alex says and grabs two more logs of wood. They don’t use the fireplace a lot, but he always has at least a little firewood stacked outside the house, either for special occasions, or for snowstorms.

There’s a big one coming. Alex is keeping the rink closed today – they’re going to get a lot of snow in the course of the day and they’re expecting power outages, so it’s not worth putting anyone in danger. No one will be coming to the rink in a snowstorm anyway.

Maybe they’ll open late tomorrow. If the power goes out at the rink, the ice won’t melt immediately, so Alex only has to worry about that if they end up having no power for several days. It’s a  _wait and see_  sort of thing at the moment.

Nadira didn’t go to work either this morning; she’s working from home, although right now she’s busy having an existential crisis. Alex would love to help, but he’s trying to make sure that none of them freeze today.

For now, the snow is floating down gently and Byron is having the time of his life in the backyard.

“Actually, Nadi, could you open the door for me?” Alex asks and picks up his bin full of firewood.

“Absolutely…” Nadira runs to open the backdoor for him. Byron is the first one who darts inside. “Do I need to go out and buy, like, some canned soup so we won’t starve?”

“Honestly, I think we’re good. We have tons of food, we have a generator, we have a grill, a camping cooker, and loads of stuff you can eat without even heating it up. I put water in the tubs of all bathrooms that we’re not using right now. It’ll be fine. You might just not be able to leave tomorrow morning if my plow guy doesn’t come by first thing.”

“Honestly, if it gets as bad as they’re saying, I don’t think anyone will expect me to show up for work tomorrow,” Nadira says as she follows him into the house.

Alex hums and carries his last load of wood into the living room. They already have a bunch stacked up, so they’ll be okay for at least two days. He’s probably forgetting something important, but for now they’re all set.

“Is Connor back yet?” Alex asks.

“Don’t think so.” Nadira is fiddling with her phone, clearly distracted. “Alex.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what it feels like when you know you’ve made a giant mistake and you need to fix it immediately?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“I think I need to fix it,” Nadira says.

“Fix what exactly?”

“I need to…” Nadira takes a deep breath. “I think I need to go to Sarah’s.”

“What,  _now_?”

“Yeah.”

“Nadi…” Alex doesn’t want to be condescending, but it’s going to get bad out there quickly. “Listen, I don’t wanna tell you how to live your life, but maybe now is not a good time to go anywhere.”

“I know, but it’s not even that bad yet. I know how to drive in the snow.”

“I don’t doubt that. I’m just saying…”

Nadira bounces up and down, phone still in her hands, nose scrunched up. “Listen, I need to go kiss her. It’s in the name of true love.”

“You… what?”

“I’ve been telling you… I fucked things up and I need to do something about it.”

Alex almost wants to offer to drive her, but he still has to set up the generator, although he hopes they won’t end up needing it. It’s just a precaution, really, because once the lights are out– “I need to get the flashlights,” Alex mutters.

“Okay. I’m going.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Nadira says and takes his hands. “I’ll be fine.”

“At least send me a text when you’re there,” Alex says.

“Okay, Mom.”

Alex huffs. “Just be safe out there, okay?”

“I will,” Nadira says and gives him a hug. “Thank you. But I really have to do this. Like, when I got back from their All Star weekend yesterday, I just… I saw her there and she’s just so amazing, you know? A girl like that wants to be with me and what do I do? Turn her down? Because I’m obsessed with my career? I was so focused on that one thing that I didn’t even realize that something good was happening to me? I can’t believe that I didn’t– I’m such an idiot.”

“Do you wanna borrow my car?” Alex only asks. It’s probably a lot easier to drive in this weather and it’s not like he’s planning on going anywhere.

“Really?”

Alex nods and gets her the keys. It’s not far from his place to the center of town, but with the snow slowly accumulating on the roads now, Nadira won’t get there in the roughly five minutes it usually takes them to get there.

He watches Nadira leave through the window by the door, gets the flashlights and makes sure that there are a couple upstairs as well. Outside, the wind is picking up and the snow is starting to look thicker.

When Alex’s phone starts ringing, he’s almost convinced that it’ll be Nadira calling to tell him that she’s stuck somewhere between their house and the town center, but it turns out to be Connor.

“Hey, everything okay?” Alex asks when he picks up.

“Heeey, Alex. Yeah, everything’s fine. Just wondering… you have a generator, right?” Connor says.

“I do.”

“Yeah, so, Nick doesn’t have one. And I thought maybe he should come back with me and stay the night?”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” Alex says.

There’s some mumbling in the background, then Connor says, “Can he bring his cat? Does Byron eat cats?”

“Byron is fine with cats,” Alex says. He’s taken Byron to Ashley’s house and while Byron was excited about making new friends, two of Ashley’s cats were less than delighted with their visitor. The only one who didn’t go into hiding was Bowie. “We can always keep them separate, though, the house is big enough.”

“Okay, great, we’ll be there soon, we just have to pick some things up at Nick’s place. The roads are getting pretty icky.”

“Icky?” Nick says in the background.

“Shut up,” Connor says. “Alex, thank you, see you in a bit.”

“Yeah, see you.”

Alex shakes his head as he hangs up. Well, they certainly have enough room for Nick and Emily. He’s pretty sure that Nadira won’t be driving back here today.


	58. snow, Chapter 12.2

**snow**

 

**Chapter 12.2**

 

*

**Connor Walden** @ConnorWaldo

Hanging out with my new bestie Emily today instagram.com/p/8ikL3e

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

how many best friends do you have??

|

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

at least…. 5

*

“Are you sure Byron is okay with cats?” Nick asks as they walk up the steps to Alex’s house.

“I honestly have no idea,” Connor replies, “but Alex said it’s fine.” He holds up the cat carrier that Emily is currently curled up in. “Yeah, you’ll be just fine. Seriously, Byron is a good puppy. Do you know how Emily feels about dogs?”

“The people who work at the shelter said that she’s fine with other animals. And kids. And… well, she’s a pretty chill cat, really, so I’m not worried about  _her_.”

“Okay,” Nick says. He’s carrying a litterbox and a duffle bag that’s full of his stuff and cat food.

Connor unlocks the door for both of them and Byron is already waiting for them, barking excitedly when they come trudging into the house, leaving a trail of melting snow on the black tiles.

“Hey, guys,” Alex says as he comes shuffling out of the living room.

“Hey,” Connor says and points at Emily, “look who’s here.”

“How about you let Byron say hello,” Alex says. “Just set her down on the floor and he’ll… yeah.”

Connor sets the carrier down on the floor and Byron immediately starts to sniff it, tail wagging. He plops down next to it when he realizes that Emily isn’t coming out.

“He’s good,” Alex says.

Nick has a little more confidence now and bends down to open the carrier. Emily comes out slowly, sniffs Byron, and when he tries to get closer, she paws at his nose and retreats quickly.

“Yeah, she can handle herself,” Alex says. “Nick, where do you wanna sleep?”

“Uh… anywhere?”

“Let’s find you an actual bed.”

Connor snorts.

“Oh, and we brought food,” Nick says.

“Right, the food… I’ll get that.” Connor quickly runs back outside and grabs their Chinese food from the backseat. There’s snow settling on the driveway, on the grass, and it’s starting to get windy. He nearly slips on the way up the stairs and decides that he won’t go back outside again today.

Alex and Nick are in the kitchen when Connor gets back inside and sets down their food on the counter. Alex has Emily cradled against his chest, her tail swishing; Nick is absent-mindedly scratching the top of Byron’s head.

“We should tell Nadi about the food,” Connor says and pulls out the spring rolls.

“Oh,” Alex says. “Nadi isn’t here.”

Nick frowns. “She went to work?”

“No. She went to Sarah’s.”

Connor fishes a spring roll out of the box and takes a bite. “To Sarah’s?”

“She said she had something to take care of,” Alex says, smiling sheepishly. “You know… about the thing. The, uh…”

Alex is clearly trying not to mention the humongous crush that Sarah has on Nadira, and he’s probably also trying not to mention the humongous crush that Nadira has on Sarah. “Yeah,” Connor says, “the thing. The important thing.”

Nick looks at Connor, then at Alex, then back at Connor. “Okay. A thing.”

“Sorry,” Connor says. “I’m not sure if Nadira would appreciate it if we told you.”

Nick only stares at him for a moment, then he nods. “No, yeah, I get that. I, uh…” His eyes flicker to Alex. “No worries.” He reaches out to pet Emily’s head. “Thanks for having us over.”

“Sure, no problem,” Alex says. “You wanna go eat in the living room? Put on a movie?”

“Sounds good to me,” Connor says and grabs all the food.

He doesn’t get to talk to Alex until a little while later. Once they’ve eaten, Connor insists on cleaning up with Alex and tells Nick to stay on the couch because he’s a guest and guests don’t need to clean up.

He’s just way too nosy for his own good and he needs to know what’s up with Nadira. Alex checked his phone five times while they were eating and the fifth time he smirked and put his phone on the table. He didn’t touch it again afterwards.

“Did she go to Sarah’s to… you know?” Connor asks as soon as they’re in the kitchen.

“I think she did,” Alex says.

“Did she text you?”

“She just told me that she’d made it there,” Alex says. “I have no idea what’s going on otherwise.”

Connor only stares at him.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Maybe you should ask her what’s happening,” Connor says and wiggles his eyebrows at him.

“I don’t think she’d reply.”

“Well, if she doesn’t reply, we’ll know that  _something_  is happening.”

Alex rolls his eyes at him and shoos him away. Connor laughs and sits down at the kitchen island. Byron sticks around, of course, because Alex is still putting away food.

“Are you getting along with your new friend?” Alex asks. “Do you like her?”

Byron wags his tail.

“You do, don’t you?”

Nick clears his throat over by the door. “Hey. Sorry. Just wanted to get something to drink.”

“Oh, sure, yeah,” Alex says and nods at the fridge. “What do you want?”

“Just water is fine.”

“Okay, uh…”

“I’ll get it,” Nick says and gets himself a glass of water. “I talk to Emily, too. I didn’t think I would, but…” He shrugs. “They just listen, don’t they?”

Alex nods. “They do.”

“I’m glad they get along. Not gonna lie, I was a little worried about that.”

“Oh, he’s good as long as it’s not a squirrel.”

“Yeah,” Connor says, “he does like chasing those.”

“All you have to do is whistle and he’ll come back.”

Connor sighs. “I don’t know how to whistle.”

Emily comes darting into the kitchen and Alex picks her up. “She’s so soft,” he mumbles and bends down to start the dishwasher, Emily peering over his shoulder, clearly content to be where she is right now.

Nick is staring a little. “She likes you,” he says eventually.

“She seems like one of those cats that like everyone,” Alex says. “Those are pretty rare as far as I know.”

“Lucky me,” Nick says, his lips twitching into a smile.

Alex gently sets down Emily. “I have to take Byron out before it gets really bad.”

Connor peers out the window. The snow is really coming down now. “Ew, you really wanna go out there?”

“Don’t have much of a choice,” Alex says.

Connor hums. “Do you guys mind if I take a nap?”

“That doesn’t sound like a terrible idea,” Nick says.

“Yeah, you guys do… whatever you usually do,” Alex says and takes off with Byron.

Connor actually feels bad that Alex has to go out there. He’s been working so hard to make sure they won’t freeze to death in this storm.

He slides off his chair and gives Nick a pat on the back. “I’m gonna go upstairs, but… just sleep wherever you want, Alex doesn’t care.”

“All right,” Nick says. “Thanks, Waldo.”

“No worries, kid.”

“Really?”

Connor shrugs. “I’m two months older than you.” He hears Nick laugh as he wanders off.

*

The drive downtown is a fucking nightmare. The snow is starting to settle on the roads, so everything’s slowly but surely turning slippery. Nadira goes as fast as she dares, which is not very fast.

She’s not the only one out there, but she’s trying to stay as far away from everyone as possible. She doesn’t want to end up in anyone’s trunk.

As she drives – slowly – she has a lot of time to think about turning around. Going back home. Forgetting about the whole thing. Technically, she knows that Sarah likes her – or at least she liked her some five and a half weeks ago – but maybe she doesn’t like her anymore.

Almost six weeks are more than enough to get over someone.

Unless you’re Nadira and have a crush on the same girl all of freshman and sophomore year in college.

Anyway. This was a dumb decision. She should have stayed at home, she should have waited, but apparently the thought of making a grand romantic gesture destroyed all of her critical thinking skills.

Nadira breathes out a sigh of relief when she’s finally parked Alex’s car in the small parking lot behind the house Sarah lives in. She made it. She’s still alive. Nadira grabs her phone and lets Alex know that she’s okay and that his car is also okay, but that she likely won’t be driving back to his house tonight.

And that’s when she notices the great flaw in her plan.

If this doesn’t go well, she has nowhere to go. She can’t drive back in this. Well, she could. But she really, really doesn’t want to. So if Sarah suddenly hates her, Nadira will just have to… well, maybe she’ll just sleep in the car. And get frostbite.  _Yay_.  

Nadira takes a deep breath. She can do this. She can get out of this car, ring the doorbell, walk up the stairs and tell Sarah how she feels.

She turns off the car, gets out and makes sure it’s locked. Three times.

Then she shuffles to the door. Slowly. Because it’s icy and slippery and she’s suddenly not in a hurry anymore.

Nadira stares at the doorbell.  _Helena Ness – Sarah Albright_. Her heart is beating so fast that she’s almost sure that she’s going to pass out. Which would be great, because then she didn’t have to ring the doorbell.

Okay. She doesn’t have to. She chose this. She wants to. And sometimes, to get the things that you want, you have to put yourself through insane amounts of stress.

“You got this,” Nadira whispers and rings the doorbell before she can change her mind.

The intercom crackles a moment later and Sarah says, “Hello?” Or at least Nadira is pretty sure that it’s Sarah. It’s a little hard to tell.

“Um, hi, it’s Nadira.”

“Nadi?”

The intercom stops crackling and the door buzzes.

Nadira gives it a push and goes up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints.

Sarah is waiting for her upstairs, leaning in the doorway to her and Nessie’s apartment. “Nadi, what the hell are you doing here? It’s horrible out there.”

“I know,” Nadira says. She’s not sure where to go from here. She knows how words work, but nothing she’s done in her life so far has prepared her for this. She’s not a Great Romantic Gesture kind of person. She’d rather hide somewhere and eat Doritos and ignore all the nasty feelings, because acting on those nasty feelings is way too scary.

“Everything okay?” Sarah asks. “You can totally stay here if you don’t wanna drive back to Alex’s.”

“Thanks, but… I mean, that’d be great. I just came here to, uh, say something. To talk to you. To… clear something up. I don’t know. I’m sorry for just showing up here, I probably should have called.”

Honestly, what if Sarah hadn’t been home? Then Nadira would have been stranded in downtown Cedar Mills with nowhere to go. Or she would have had to try to drive back to Alex’s place. There were so many ways in which this could have gone wrong and she didn’t even realize.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sarah asks, frowning at her. “So… what’s up?”

“Okay,” Nadira says. “Okay. So. Remember, a couple of weeks ago… on New Year’s Eve… well, technically the day after… remember what you said? That you wanted to kiss me?”

“I–”

“Because I’ve been thinking about that a lot,” Nadira goes on. If Sarah says anything, Nadira will probably lose her shit and chicken out. “And I’ve realized that I maybe want to kiss you, too. Not just maybe. That’s why I’m here. I wanted to tell you that I made a mistake. And I know you said that you’re not ready to be in a relationship anyway, but I thought maybe things have changed and I really want to kiss you, so… I will kiss you now. If you still want me to. And if you don’t, it’d be great if I could still stay here, because I don’t wanna go back out there ever again.”

Sarah laughs.

“Oh, great, you’re laughing at me.”

“I’m not laughing  _at_  you,” Sarah says. She bites her lip. “Okay, maybe a little.”

“This was such a bad idea. I thought I’d come here and it’d be really romantic, but I guess it’s really not, it’s just  _weird_  and you told me that you didn’t actually want this and I–”

“No, Nadi, wait. I do.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“You–”

Before Nadira can say,  _You do_ , again, Sarah steps forward and kisses her and suddenly the whole nightmare drive into town was totally worth it. Because Nadira is kissing Sarah Albright, and Sarah Albright is an excellent kisser.

Sarah wraps her arms around Nadira, and Nadira lets herself be pulled closer. It’s been so long since she last kissed someone that it takes her a moment to figure out where to put her hands. One of them ends up curled around the back of Sarah’s neck to pull herself up, the other one goes on the small of Sarah’s back, and it stays there, grabbing a fistful of Sarah’s shirt.

Nadira knows that they’ll have to stop at some point, because they’re in the middle of a hallway and they can’t just keep kissing forever, even though Nadira definitely isn’t opposed to kissing Sarah forever. It’s not exactly warm out here, but Nadira can’t find it in herself to care about her frozen toes right now.

Sarah eventually smiles against Nadira’s lips and pulls away, just to say, “Come inside.”

“Okay,” Nadira says and follows Sarah into the apartment.

Nadira barely looks around, but she spots a nest of blankets on the couch that Sarah probably dug herself out of to answer the door. There are wrappers from the taco truck on the table. Nessie is nowhere to be found, but Sia is playing in her room. Loudly.

As soon as Sarah has kicked the door shut, she looks at Nadira, laughs, and pulls her back against her to kiss her again. And again. And then some more.


	59. snow, Chapter 12.3

**snow**

 

**Chapter 12.3**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Stay warm, Cards fans! Our mascot @CardieNHL might go south for the winter after all.

*

“It’s disgusting out there,” Jamie says as he comes shuffling into the house, huffing and puffing. His scarf is pulled up to his nose and he’s covered in snow. “Here, take this.”

Ashley holds out her hand and Jamie hands over the tacos. She peers into the bag. Looks like they’re also having burritos. And cheese nachos. “Did you buy everything they had?”

“Pretty much.” Jamie grins. “No, I did leave some for Sarah. She was in line behind me.”

They eat in the living room, because actually eating in the dining room twice in one day seems a bit excessive, especially since it’s a snow day and they have a movie marathon ahead of them.

Ashley grabs  _The Cutting Edge_  and Jamie doesn’t complain, because he knows her, and he also knows that she won’t complain when he inevitably opts for some boring action movie.

He ends up picking one of the  _Iron Man_  movies. Ashley has lost track of those a little bit. She almost wants to get her laptop and keep looking around, but she still doesn’t know what she’s looking for.

The lights flicker for the first time halfway during the movie.

“Uh-oh,” Jamie says.

Ashley looks around. It’s already starting to get dark, even though it’s only the middle of the afternoon. She sits up and peers out the window. Everything’s covered in white. She can barely even see their neighbors’ houses across the street, and the wind is blowing the snow against their windows. The lights stay on, though. For now.

“Okay, I’m gonna do it,” Ashley says. “I’m gonna eat the last taco.”

“I believe in you,” Jamie says.

Ashley does eat the last taco. Then she cleans up their wrappers. Then she does grab her laptop.

“Checking the forecast?” Jamie asks.

“I mean, no… but I can check if you want me to.”

“Nah, it’s just gonna be snow anyway.”

Ashley smirks and starts googling colleges in the area. There have to be more community colleges around. Ashley quickly gets sucked into her search

“You’re frowning an awful lot,” Jamie eventually says.

“Sorry,” Ashley mutters. “I was just looking at… something.”

“Something,” Jamie echoes.

“I’m just looking at classes,” Ashley mumbles and closes her laptop.

“Cool, what classes?”

“Oh, nothing in particular. I’m just trying to see what’s out there.”

Maybe that was a bit of a lie. Maybe she was hanging out on the website of Yale. Obviously, she’s going to go to fucking Yale, but their courses looked a lot more appealing than whatever the local community college had to offer.

It’s not like she’s going to go  _away_  for college. She has a whole life here. Cats. Jamie. They’re getting married in the summer. She has a job. Seriously, a whole life. She can’t just leave for four years and do all those things that Sarah and Alex did at college – go to frat parties and break into rinks at night and eat Bagel Bites at three in the morning. That’s not her life.

The lights flicker again.

“No, come on, it’s too early for this,” Ashley grumbles.

Another flicker, just to piss her off, but then it looks like they’re okay again. She sincerely hopes that they’ll be okay for a little while longer.

Bowie jumps onto the couch and makes himself comfortable on Ashley’s chest.

Ashley groans and he shoots her a dirty look. “I think I’m having a midlife crisis,” she says. “Is this what that feels like?”

“I don’t know, are you suddenly overcome with the urge to drive a motorbike?”

“Totally,” Ashley says.

Maybe she  _should_  start driving a motorbike.

She glances out the window. Not today, though. Definitely not today.

*

Alex makes cookies while Connor and Nick both take a nap. Connor is in his room; Nick is in the living room, snoring softly on the couch. Alex barged in there earlier, unaware that Nick had chosen to nap on the couch and not in the guest room upstairs.

Thankfully, Nick didn’t wake up. He just scrunched up his nose and went on sleeping. He was curled around one of the pillows, his mouth open just a little. He wasn’t drooling. Sadly. That would have made Alex’s entire day.

Alex takes the last of the cookies out of the oven and turns it off. He should start thinking about what he’s going to do for dinner. Probably chicken. Pasta. Vegetables. Or maybe he’ll just throw some frozen chicken tenders in the oven and be done with it.

He picks up one of the cookies, but it’s still way too hot and he nearly drops it, breaks it, tries to catch it, but half of it still ends up on the floor.

Alex frowns. Byron is usually the first one in the kitchen when something lands on the floor. He eats the other half of the cookie, only burns his tongue a little bit, picks up what he dropped and throws it in the trash, because he’s pretty sure that Byron licked the floor right there when Connor accidentally dropped a piece of popcorn the other day.

He sneaks into the living room to see if Byron is sleeping.

He is. And Emily is on his cushion with him, a paw on Byron’s purple dinosaur.

Alex gets his phone out of his pocket and snaps a picture. He knows that Connor will want to see this.

“What time’s it?”

Alex jumps and turns around.

Nick is still curled up on the couch, smiling sleepily. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No worries.” Alex takes a deep breath. “I kinda forgot you were there. And it’s almost four.”

“Snow?”

“A lot. Looks like the end of the world out there.”

Nick hums and gets up to look out the window. “Power’s still on, right?”

“Yeah. All good. We don’t lose power a lot here, unless a tree falls on the power lines right out there next to the road.”

“Lucky you.” Nick smiles down at Byron and Emily. “Aw, look at them.”

“Yeah, they’re getting along,” Alex says. “Hey, there are cookies in the kitchen if you want some. And I was thinking chicken and pasta for dinner? I’ll probably get started on that soon.”

“Sure,” Nick says. “Can I help?”

“Uh… if you want to.”

And clearly Nick wants to. They end up in the kitchen together, digging through the fridge. This should feel strange, having Nick here with him, commenting on the ridiculous number of salad dressings they have in the fridge, grabbing a bag of baby carrots and eating them as he points out that it’s weird to put sandwich bread in the fridge, but it doesn’t feel strange at all.

Nick puts back the carrots and grabs some chicken, but abandons it on the counter in favor of eating some cookies.

“Do you make these for Waldo?” Nick asks. “Because he sometimes brings cookies on roadies and… they taste exactly like these.”

“I make them a lot,” Alex says with a shrug. They’re popular. Always have been.

Nick takes a second one, smiling sheepishly.

Alex grins. “Have as many as you want.”

“Don’t say that, otherwise I’ll eat all of them.”

Alex laughs and grabs a cutting board for the vegetables. Nick eats another cookie, eyes on the fridge. Alex follows his gaze and sees that Nick is looking at the pictures – Alex and Connor on New Year’s Eve, wearing party hats, Ashley and Alex on the day Alex officially became the owner of the rink, Alex and Byron in a pile of leaves, Nadira and Connor and their Christmas tree. They were all taken during the last couple of months.

Nick glances at Alex.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Nothing.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at him. Nick definitely wanted to say  _something_.

“I’m just thinking…” Nick trails off, shaking his head.

“Yes?”

“It’s none of my business.”

“And when has that ever stopped you?” Alex asks. “You’ve been all up in my business ever since you came back here.”

Nick grins. It’s the grin of the little shit that Alex knew when he was a teenager. It’s the grin of the real Nick Rivera, not the Nick Rivera who hides 99% of his personality from the media.

Alex likes this Nick. The real one, the one who just ate half a dozen cookies like no one was watching, the one who is all up in Alex’s business. Alex grins back at him. “So?”

“I just thought those pictures might look better in the hallway,” Nick says. “You know, instead of that shrine that commemorates your dad’s glory.”

“Well–” Alex trails off when Connor comes shuffling into the kitchen. He wasn’t sure what to say anyway. He can’t say that he’s a fan of all those old photos. They’re depicting a past that doesn’t really feel like  _his_  past anymore.

The kid in those pictures, it’s the Alex Goldman who was supposed to play hockey and break his father’s records. And Alex remembers being that kid, he remembers wanting all those great things, remembers dreaming about lifting the Cup, like his dad does in those pictures, but it feels like a different life.

“You’re making dinner?” Connor asks. “You should have woken me up, I can help.”

“Here,” Alex says and hands Connor a cookie. “Eat this. And then set the table.”

“Love you.” Connor takes the cookie, takes a bite, and gives Alex a kind of half-hug in passing. He’s stops on his way to the cabinet with the plates, turns around and gives Nick a hug, too. “And I love you.”

Alex smiles. Next to him, Nick is smiling, too.

*

When Sarah wakes up, Nadira is still in her bed.

So that wasn’t a dream. Nadira actually drove to her apartment, through all that snow, to tell Sarah that she’d very much like to kiss her. And then she did. There were fireworks. Nobody could see them, but they were there.

Sarah isn’t used to her life feeling like a happy-go-lucky kind of romcom, but there’s a girl in her bed, and that girl is smiling when Sarah opens her eyes.

“Hey,” Nadira says.

Sarah breaths out a quiet laugh. “Hey. You’re still here.” It’s dark outside her window – when they decided that it was time for a nap, it was still light out, but only barely.

“Well,” Nadira says, “it’s not like I can go anywhere right now. I think you’re stuck with me for the night.”

“Right.”

“If that’s okay,” Nadira says quickly. “I mean, I can totally sleep on the couch, I’m not, like… inviting myself into your bed or anything. Honestly, I don’t have any expectations whatsoever regarding your bed and what will happen in it. Shit, I just really need to stop talking, don’t I?”

“Actually,” Sarah says, “maybe we should keep talking about that?”

“Probably.”

They look each other for a moment and Sarah can’t keep herself from smiling, mostly because Nadira is smiling, and when Sarah smiles back at her, Nadira’s smile gets even wider. This is what a Disney princess must feel like when she finally gets her happily ever after. This is the Regular People equivalent of riding into the sunset.

They’re just… not going anywhere. There are no horses involved. No castles. Just them, in Sarah’s bed. For the foreseeable future. It truly is a fairytale.

Something growls lowly.

“Um…” Nadira makes a face. “Sorry.”

“Oh, dinner. We should get dinner. Well, more like, find dinner somewhere in this apartment, because going outside is really not a viable option.”

“Yeah, let’s find dinner,” Nadira says.

Sarah gets out of bed and holds her hand out for Nadira to pull her to her feet as well. She holds on to Nadira’s hand as they make for the kitchen. It’s not like she needs to, she won’t lose her on the way there, but she doesn’t want to let go, not even a little bit.

“So,” Sarah says and pulls open the fridge, “we have… a bunch of leftovers. Or I could cook something. What do you like?”

“I like… a lot of things.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“I’m sorry, I’m a useless lesbian,” Nadira says and opens the next best cupboard. “Here. Let’s eat this.”

“Mac and cheese?” Sarah takes the blue box from Nadira. “Really?”

“I know I’m an adult and I shouldn’t love mac and cheese, but I don’t care.”

“Okay, but we have to make two, so Nessie can have some,” Sarah says and grabs another one. She’s not even surprised that there’s another box behind it. Nessie would eat mac and cheese every single day if it was in any way possible for her to do so.

“Sure,” Nadira says and starts looking around, probably for a pot.

“Here, why don’t you sit down and I’ll cook for you. If you can call this cooking. It’s probably not. Gordon Ramsey would be appalled.”

“Aw, you know what, my dad loves Gordon Ramsey,” Nadira says, shaking her head. Weird time to bring up her dad. “Anyway, I don’t wanna sit. I can help.”

“Okay,” Sarah says and gently pushes her against the counter. “Maybe you should stay right here, then.”

“And do what?”

Sarah leans down to kiss her. “This?”

“Yeah, that is… good,” Nadira says and wraps her arms around Sarah to pull her closer.

Nadira gasps softly when Sarah kisses her again, the kiss deeper this time. Sarah frames Nadira’s face with her hands, thumb running along her cheekbones as Nadira’s hands slowly wander down Sarah’s sides, coming to a rest at the hem of her sweatpants.

They were making mac and cheese, they really had every intention to do that, but this seems more important right now. Nadira kisses Sarah like there’s nothing in the world she’d rather do, like it’s the only thing that matters, like nothing else will ever be this important.

Sarah can never let her go.

She does pull away eventually, though, her forehead still resting against Nadira’s, trying to will her heart to slow down, but it keeps hammering in her chest, and it has all right to when Nadira is right here, kissing her like that.

Well, she’s not kissing her anymore, but Sarah can still feel it somehow, and Nadira is looking up at her with a certain glint in her eyes, and that’s not really helping Sarah’s heart rate either. Nadira smiles and stands on her tiptoes to kiss the corner of Sarah’s mouth.

“Okay,” Sarah says.

Nadira giggles and Sarah has to kiss her again.

She leaves one of her hands with Nadira, their fingers intertwined, when she reaches for the mac and cheese boxes, but she quickly learns that cooking with one hand isn’t going to work for her, so she settles for letting go of Nadira and occasionally leaning over to kiss her.

Sarah will keep going like this until it’s inevitably time for them to have a serious conversation about what’s going on here and what’s going to happen once the snow stops falling and Nadira can leave here again.

Mostly, Sarah wants to know if Nadira is coming back.

Maybe she’s freaking out a little. When Nadira turned her down on New Year’s Eve, she didn’t think there was a chance of this happening. Ever. And now that it did, she has no idea where to go from here.

It’s never worked for her like this. None of her serious relationships started with a kiss. They all started with someone asking her out on a date. The ones that did start with a kiss weren’t serious at all. They were usually over less than twenty-four hours later.

Nadira’s fingers are suddenly on her back, slowly trailing down her spine. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“You okay?” Nadira asks.

“Sure, yeah, totally,” Sarah says, nodding as she stirs the pasta.

“Sarah.”

“Okay, maybe not. I mean, I  _am_  okay, but… I just want to know what happens next and I realize that I’m sort of getting ahead of myself here, but… yeah. Anyway, ignore me, I’m being a baby.”

“Do you wanna talk first and have dinner later?” Nadira asks. “Because I can wait.” Her stomach gives a low grumble about two seconds later. “Really.”

“No, it’s fine,” Sarah says. “Let’s talk about which game we’re gonna watch later if the power doesn’t go out.”

“Ohhh…” Nadira pats her hoodie for her phone and makes a face. “My phone’s in your room. Cardinals aren’t playing tonight, so that’s out. The Ravens are, although…” She turns to glance out the window. “Not sure if they’re gonna play if it’s anything like this in New York.”

Sarah follows Nadira’s gaze. The snow is swirling in the light of the streetlamps. Sarah abandons her pasta for a moment to walk closer to the window. There are a couple of cars parked in the bakery’s parking spots, but Sarah highly doubts that they’re still open. The windows of the pub across the street are dark and the snow is still falling, and showing no signs of stopping. No one’s driving.

Nadira steps closer to her and leans her head against Sarah’s shoulder, staring out the window with her and for a moment it seems like time isn’t a real thing anymore. The only thing that moves out there is the snow, everything else is perfectly still.

They’ve had a few snow storms this winter, they’ve had a couple of extremely cold weeks, but this one is worse than all the other ones before. Sarah doesn’t even want to think about digging her car out of all that snow tomorrow morning. Maybe Alex will keep the rink closed for another day, but if everything’s up and running, she’ll likely have to go to work in the morning.

The timer for the mac and cheese finally goes off and Sarah has to move to put that delicious cheese powder on their pasta while Nadira looks into all the wrong cupboards to find some bowls.

Sarah finally takes pity on her and points at the right one.

“I’ll tell Nessie about the food,” Sarah says and ventures across the living room to knock on Nessie’s door.

“Yeah?”

Sarah opens the door and peers inside. Nessie is sprawled on her bed, laptop on her stomach, a bag of Cheetos open next to her.

“Don’t look at me,” Nessie says.

“Okay,” Sarah says and pointedly stares at Nessie. “Nadi and I made mac and cheese.”

Nessie’s eyes go wide. “I hope you made an entire box for me,” she says and crawls out of bed. “Wait… What’s Nadi doing here?”

Sarah smirks and it probably tells Nessie everything she needs to know.

Nessie gives her a scandalized look. “Holy shit,  _Sarah_.”

“Shh, don’t make it weird, okay?”

Nessie pats her on the back. “Of course not,” she says and skips out of her room. “Ey, Nadi, I hear you’re smooching my roomie?”

Sarah rolls her eyes. She hears Nadira laugh a second later, though, so it’s all good.


	60. snow, Chapter 12.4

**snow**

**Chapter 12.4**

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I know I’ve said some really mean things about snowstorms in the past and I’d like to formally apologize, because sometimes they’re not so bad

*

“Okay,” Nadira says and sits down on Sarah’s bed, cross-legged, trying to look like she has everything under control and isn’t starting to lose it completely. “Let’s do this.”

Sarah nods and sits down on the other side of the bed, knees drawn up against her chest. “Okay.”

She looks nervous, too, which makes Nadira feel at least a little bit better. She hasn’t done this in a while. And by  _this_ , she means a lot of things. She means that she hasn’t even kissed a girl in, what, a year? She hasn’t been in a serious relationship in years. All the girls she was dating in New York didn’t stick around for long. Or Nadira didn’t want them to stick around.

Sarah isn’t just some pretty girl she met at a bar somewhere in Brooklyn. This matters, because Sarah is her friend, and whatever happens from here on out, Nadira would hate it if she lost a friend because of this.

Maybe she shouldn’t have come here yesterday. Maybe she should have given herself a few more days to think about it. But she’s been thinking about it for weeks, she thought about it so much that she just couldn’t take it anymore yesterday.

Hanging out with Sarah at the All Star Game in DC nearly fucking killed her. They were out at a bar with a bunch of players and staff and one of Sarah’s old teammates from Boston was there and they were flirting and Nadira could tell that it was nothing serious, they were just tipsy and having fun, but Nadira got stupidly jealous about it anyway.

“Sarah,” she says.

“Nadira,” Sarah says.

“What do you want?” Nadira asks. “You know. You and I.” None of what she’s saying sounds like it makes any sense.

“Well, what I want, really, is to go out on a date with you,” Sarah says. “Maybe on Friday? Dinner?”

“Oh. A date?”

Somehow, that wasn’t what Nadira was expecting. She thought that Sarah might want to jump right in. Call this a relationship. Nadira is weirdly relieved that she doesn’t.  _A date._  She can handle a date. Jumping from a kiss into a relationship? That’s really not Nadira’s thing. She wants build-up. She also sort of wants to ease into it, because she’s bad at relationships. She needs more time to convince herself that she can do this and not screw it up.

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “a date.”

Nadira nods. “Okay. Yeah.”

“And maybe we can go out on several dates. If the first one goes well.” Sarah fiddles with the hem of her shirt. She takes a deep breath.

Nadira has a feeling that Sarah might have something else she wants to say, but it just won’t come out. Maybe Sarah needs a little nudge. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“What is it?” Nadira asks. Maybe that wasn’t a  _little_  nudge, but it’s pretty obvious that she is holding something back.

Sarah presses her lips together for a moment and then says, “Okay, so, the thing is, I was with Nate for a while. Like, several years. And my dating experience is… Well, the last time I went out on a date I was still in college. I was in my sophomore year, actually. That was a long time ago. So I’m gonna be nervous. In fact, I’m nervous right now.”

“Oh, honey, me too,” Nadira says. “The last five dates I was on were a complete disaster.”

Sarah laughs. “But you were out on five dates. Nate and I didn’t really go out on dates anymore. Or at least we didn’t call them that. We went out for dinner and then we’d argue, because he was rude to the server and I’d start shit, or he’d start shit because of my dessert choices, which would then make me want to start shit. One time he got mad at me because I had chocolate cake for, like, the third time in a row. So, you see, all the dates that I went on eventually turned pretty unpleasant.”

“I’m sorry,” Nadira says. “I swear, you can have for dessert whatever you want.”

“I knew you were a reasonable person,” Sarah says.

Nadira smiles at her. “So… a date.”

“Yeah.” Sarah nods. “A date. I’ll pick you up and take you out for dinner. And I’ll drive you home. And maybe I’ll kiss you on your doorstep. I’ve always wanted to kiss someone on their doorstep.”

“I think we can arrange that,” Nadira says. She reaches out and takes Sarah’s hand. There’s one more thing. Only one more thing. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“What happens if it doesn’t work out?”

Sarah takes a deep breath. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

“Are we willing to risk that?”

“Nadi,” Sarah says and squeezes her hand, “I think we already risked it.”

Sarah definitely has a point there. They spent half the day kissing in Sarah’s bed. They can’t really take it all back now, but that was the whole point when Nadira jumped into a car and drove here in snowstorm. She didn’t want to have to go back. She didn’t even want to have a chance to turn around and run.

“Okay,” Nadira says.

Sarah smiles softly. “Okay.”

“This suddenly feels like a young adult romance novel,” Nadira says drily. “Let’s, uh…”

“Watch a game?”

“Yeah, sure, if you want to.”

“Which team?” Sarah asks and grabs her laptop.

“Grizzlies?” Nadira asks. They’re not her first choice, but Sarah used to live in Boston so it seems like a good idea. They’re down in North Carolina tonight, so they don’t have to deal with the snow.

“Oh, sure,” Sarah says. “You know, Nate took me to a Grizzles game once and then he tried to explain icing to me, it was… a mess.”

“He sounds so…” Nadira shakes her head. There are honestly no words.

“I’m just not gonna mention him anymore, I’m sorry.” Sarah grabs her laptop pulls up the game and leans back against the headboard. “Here, you wanna…”

Nadira scoots back and makes herself comfortable next to Sarah.

This is what she’s always wanted. A girl who likes hockey, who’ll put her arm around her and watch a game with her and maybe kiss her during intermission. Nadira isn’t used to getting what she wants, so part of her is still looking for the catch, but Sarah is clearly happy to sit here with her and complain about the announcers and occasionally, when the game feed goes to commercials, she leans closer and kisses Nadira’s cheek, and sometimes Nadira turns her head and kisses her back.

Sarah never complains when Nadira pulls away to look back at the game, although once the third period rolls around, Sarah’s laptop is perched on the windowsill and they don’t care about the game so much anymore.

*

After dinner, Nick ends up on the couch with Connor and Alex, watching the two Florida teams trying to murder each other. The Ravens game in New York got cancelled because of the weather.

Nick took a peek out the window before the game started and he’s honestly not sure how he’s supposed to make it to morning skate tomorrow.

Alex sighs softly. “I need to take Byron outside again.”

“Shit,” Nick says. He wouldn’t want to go out there right now.

Connor doesn’t say anything because he fell asleep halfway during the second period.

“I should probably just get it over with,” Alex mutters and gets up.

He returns to the living room a few minutes later, now bundled into a parka, scarf wrapped around his head and his neck, curls poking out. His winter boots are only halfway laced up and he’s holding a flashlight. He whistles for Byron and he follows Alex into the kitchen.

Nick tries not to get worried when Alex isn’t back after a couple of minutes, but it’s bad out there, so he gets up, leaving Connor, still asleep, in the living room.

Alex is actually back in the kitchen, drying off Byron with a towel. “Hey,” Alex says. He looks up at Nick, his glasses fogged up. “This would be so much easier if I could actually see what I’m doing.”

“Wait, let me…” Nick takes the towel from Alex to take over, but Byron gets so excited about someone else joining them that he wiggles away from Alex, tail wagging, and bumps into Nick.

“Buddy,” Alex says. “Sit. Come on.  _Sit_. Good boy. Sorry, he’s just… so excited sometimes.”

“It’s fine.”

“Try to get his paws,” Alex says. He shrugs off his coat and dries off his glasses.

“I did my best,” Nick says when Byron has had enough and darts off.

“Thank you. I mean, look at me.” There’s a small puddle right where Alex came in with Byron. He takes off his shoes and his parka and dumps them by the door with a shrug. “Whatever, that’s not a problem for right now.” He nods at the opposite door. “Come with me?”

“Okay?”

Nick follows Alex into the hallway. It’s dark and Alex doesn’t seem to want to turn  on the lights. Alex stops next to a photo of his dad, taken the night he won his first Stanley Cup. Nick can tell which year it was because of the jerseys. He knows his Cardinals history.

“I think you were right,” Alex says, looking up at the photo.

“I was?”

“I was going to break his records,” Alex says quietly. “All of them. Every single one. And, I mean, even back when I was still playing, I was good, but I wasn’t him. And maybe I never would have been him.”

Alex reaches up and takes the frame off the wall. He hands it to Nick.

“So, I’m thinking, maybe I would have never been able to do all those things I wanted to do anyway. Maybe it doesn’t really matter that I’m not playing anymore.”

“You don’t know that,” Nick says. He doesn’t want Alex to think that he could have never been as great as his dad. Because he could have, but that probably makes it hurt even more.

“No, I was always just a slightly less impressive version of my dad.”

“Alex…”

Alex huffs and grabs the next picture. Second Stanley Cup.

“He saw that, too,” Alex goes on.

Next Picture. Third Stanley Cup.

“And he couldn’t take it.”

Next picture. Little Alex sitting in the Cup, beaming at the camera. Alex stares down at it once he’s taken it off the wall, then he hands it to Nick.

“He wanted me to be better than him, too. Or maybe only just as good. I don’t think he would have actually liked it if I’d overtaken him,” Alex says. “And no matter what I did… It was never good enough for him.”

Next picture. Alex and his dad skating together.

“What are you gonna do with them?” Nick asks.

“Put them in a box,” Alex says with a shrug. “I have to put them up again in the summer. Mom and Dad usually come by for a couple of days.”

“Say you painted the wall and forgot to put them up again,” Nick says.

Alex laughs. “You’re just full of good excuses, aren’t you?”

“I have to be.”

Alex turns his head to look at him.

It’s funny how it’s been years since Nick last wanted to kiss Alex Goldman, and now here they are, and it feels exactly the same all over again. It’s like he never actually stopped feeling like this.

Nick can’t really read the look that Alex gives him. Maybe there’s some understanding in it, maybe some pity. Nick doesn’t want anyone’s pity, though; he wants to play hockey. If he has to lie, if he has to hide in order to that, then so be it. He chose this. He’s always known that it wouldn’t be easy, that he’d never get to be who he really is. He accepted that a long time ago.

Alex is still looking at him and Nick almost wants to tell him to stop, but then Alex reaches out and gently brushes his knuckles down Nick’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

Nick swallows hard. “It’s not your fault.”

Alex nods and drops his hand. “Still.”

Yeah. Still.

Nick doesn’t move when Alex steps around him to take the next picture of the wall. He can’t pretend that Alex’s touch didn’t shoot through him like lightning.

Alex hands Nick a photo of Zach Goldman with Alex’s peewee hockey team. Next is a photo of Alex when he won some MVP award at the private school he played hockey at as a teenager. They’re quickly moving through the years and arrive at a photo of Alex’s college hockey team.

If Nick had to guess he’d say it was taken in Alex’s freshman year. He looks so young, and so, so happy. It’s not the whole team in the photo, just three guys, one of them Alex. Probably Alex and his linemates. They’re in their jerseys, on the ice, and all three of them are beaming at the camera.

Alex stares at it for a long moment and eventually says, “This one can stay.”

“Okay,” Nick says. He wants to ask why, but he’s not sure if he should. Alex so loves to say that Nick is always all up in his business, and it’s true, to some extent, but maybe this is not the kind of business that Nick should get involved it.

“It’s okay,” Alex says, “you can ask.”

“How did you–”

“I hate to tell you this, but sometimes you’re astoundingly easy to read.”

“I’m not,” Nick protests.

“Oh, you are. But that’s okay. It’s just me, right? I already know all your secrets.”

Nick shrugs. “Not  _all_  of them.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” Alex says and smirks.

“Maybe,” Nick agrees. He looks up at the picture. “So, why can this one stay?”

Alex points at the empty wall next to the picture. “There was another one right there. From my sophomore year. My mom took it down after the accident, because… well, I guess she thought it would hurt me even more, and maybe she was right about that, but that one… Those guys are Matt and Charlie. Charlie went on to law school. Yale, I think. He was a year ahead of Mattie and I. And Mattie…” Alex taps the picture, pointing at the guy in the middle. He’s tall and gangly and his dark hair is sticking up at odd angles. “He died.”

Nick lets out a slow breath. He should say something, but there nothing in the world he can say, because nothing can fix this, and nothing can make it better. It just is the way it is.

“I guess my phone got totally destroyed in the accident. Maybe they didn’t even find it. Anyway, I never got it back and I don’t have a lot of pictures of him anymore, and I just… I didn’t want her to take this one down. We had a huge fight about it, it was right after I came home from the hospital, and I was hobbling around on crutches. It was…” Alex shakes his head. “I was a mess.”

“You  _were_?”

“Are you calling me messy?” Alex asks and elbows him in the arm. “Anyway. That’s why it’s staying. I had to yell at my mom to keep it there.”

Nick nods. He looks down at the stack of pictures in his arms. A Stanley Cup is peeking out from between them. “What if I break one of your dad’s records?”

“I’d be so proud,” Alex says and clutches his heart. “Which one?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Yoshi has already broken a few of them.”

“Possibly,” Alex says. He leans against the wall and he’s suddenly a lot closer to Nick. His eyes are dark, but there’s nothing serious about the way he’s looking at Nick right now. Nick feels like, after talking about all of this, maybe they should be more serious, but there’s a smile tugging at Alex’s lips.

Nick still wants to kiss him, more than he’s ever wanted to before.

He could.

In a different universe maybe.


	61. snow, Chapter 12.5

**snow**

 

**Chapter 12.5**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

fun new came: where’s waldo? good luck finding me under my 25 blankets

*

“What are you guys doing?” Connor asks as he shuffles into the hallway. He frowns at the stack of pictures that Nick is holding. “Game’s not over yet.”

“Just redecorating a little,” Alex says.

Connor hums and rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry, guys, I just feel like crap.”

“Are you coming down with something?” Alex asks. His hand twitches, almost like he wants to reach out to feel Connor’s forehead. “Maybe you should go to bed.”

“I don’t get sick,” Connor protests.

“Okay, maybe you just need some extra sleep,” Alex says and gently pushes Connor towards the stairs.

Nick is pretty sure that Alex isn’t actually pushing Connor, and that this is only working because Connor is letting himself be pushed. He looks tired. Nick pats Connor’s arm. “Sleep well, buddy.”

Connor grumbles at them, but he does trudge up the stairs, wishing them a good night, sneezing somewhere upstairs a moment later.

“I hope he doesn’t get sick,” Nick says. Because getting sick is always unfortunate, but they have a game tomorrow and one of their D-men is already out with a broken foot – not that they’re telling the media that. Lower body injury. That’s it.

Alex hums and takes the stack of pictures from Nick. “Thanks for holding these.” He dumps them on a table. “So… you wanna go to bed, too? Or do you wanna finish the game?”

“Uh…” Nick shrugs. It’s not that late. “Sure, let’s finish watching the game.”

They watch the Florida teams fight until the bitter end – an eight-round shootout. Alex eventually holds up the remote. “You wanna watch something else? I’m gonna go make some tea, but I think I’ll go to bed in a bit.”

“No, I think I’m just gonna go upstairs,” Nick says. “Thanks, Alex. For letting me– us stay here.” He glances at Emily, who’s snuggled against Byron on a big cushion.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s…” Alex shrugs. “It’s not a big deal.” He turns off the TV and gets up. “Sleep well. Let me know if you need anything.”

Nick goes upstairs to the guest room that Alex put him up in earlier. He gets out of his Cardinals hoodie and pulls on a shirt to sleep in. He goes and brushes his teeth in the bathroom across the hall, then he plugs in his phone and slips into bed.

He’s under the cover for about two minutes when he reaches for the water bottle on the nightstand in the dark, only to realize that there’s no water bottle there, because this isn’t his bedroom.

After a minute of debating with himself, he slips out of bed and goes back downstairs to find himself a bottle of water in the kitchen. The lights are still on and Alex is sitting at the breakfast bar with a cup of tea, staring down at his phone, glasses low on his nose. He looks up when Nick comes into the kitchen. “Hey, everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to get a bottle of water,” Nick says and opens the fridge, belatedly realizing that he doesn’t live here and that this isn’t his fridge and that he probably shouldn’t be acting like it is. He freezes with the fridge half-open.

Alex laughs. “Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” Nick says and ducks into the fridge to pull out a bottle of water. He unscrews it and takes a sip, just when something fuzzy touches his foot and he jumps and water goes gushing all over his shirt. “Shit.” He looks down at Emily, who’s sniffing his toes.

Alex looks like he’s trying really hard not to laugh at him, biting down on his bottom lip. He’s not doing that great of a job at hiding his smile.

Nick huffs and picks up Emily. “Thanks for scaring the crap out of me.”

“How wet is your shirt?” Alex asks.

Nick pulls at it. It’s pretty wet. “Eh, it’s okay.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really, it’s fine.”

“Do you have another one?”

Well, Nick can always sleep without a shirt on. Then again, it’s the middle of winter. He could sleep in his hoodie. “Nah, but–”

“I’ll find you a dry one,” Alex says and abandons his tea, beckoning Nick to follow him.

They go up the stairs and Alex opens the door of his room for Nick, giving him a look before he opens the door of his closet. He frowns a little and turns on the lights inside.

“What?” Nick asks and follows him in. “You know, I can just sleep in this.”

“Sure, that’ll be real comfortable,” Alex says. He grabs a shirt off a stack and then hesitates before he hands it over. It looks like he’d rather not give it to Nick.

“Just give me… whichever one you want.”

“Nah, take this one.” Alex hands over the shirt. It has an  _East Harbor Men’s Hockey_  print on it. “Guess you’re playing college hockey tonight.”

“Guess I am. Thanks.” Nick turns to leave, then he stops in his tracks. “Why did you go to college?”

Alex doesn’t reply at first. “I…” He nods at the door. “Let’s sit down, my leg is killing me.”

“Sorry,” Nick says and quickly backs up.

Alex shrugs and follows Nick back into his room. He sits down on his bed and for a second Nick isn’t sure if he’s allowed to sit down too, but then Alex gives him a look and Nick quickly sits down next to him. “Actually…” He pulls off his wet shirt and quickly puts on the dry one.

“I went to college,” Alex says, “because I wanted to. Let’s be real, I would have never made it on the Eagles’ roster in my first season. I would have spent a couple of years in the minors and then maybe I would have been in the opening lineup in your rookie season.”

Nick hums. Alex has a point. A lot of players spend some time in the minors before they get to play with the big guys.

“My dad didn’t like it, but, you know, he never liked anything I chose for myself and… Well, when it turned out that I couldn’t play anymore and was back here, I heard them talk a lot. My parents. They thought I couldn’t hear them argue, but I did most of the time. And one time my dad said something like, well, if he hadn’t gone to college, this would have never happened.”

“That’s not–”

“I know,” Alex says. “That’s not how it works. I don’t regret going.” He smiles. “I had a good time.”

“Good,” Nick says, nodding slowly. “That’s good.”

Alex shifts and leans back against the headboard. “Since we’re already talking about our life choices… Do you ever wish you’d had the chance to go?”

“I guess… maybe.” Nick shrugs. “But the NHL was always the dream for me. And they let me go straight there. I guess if I hadn’t made the roster… maybe college would have been the right thing for me. Or maybe not. I don’t even know what I would have picked as my major.”

“I didn’t know either, not in the beginning at least,” Alex says.

“What was your major anyway?”

“Communications. I did a minor in English Lit and my dad nearly lost his shit about it. Looking back it was actually funny. At that point he just hated everything I did, he thought I was totally unhinged because of the accident, but my mom wouldn’t let him give me shit for it, because she also thought I was totally unhinged because of the accident. The thing is, though, for the first time in my life I wasn’t making decisions with my hockey career in mind. I was just doing whatever I liked for the first time.”

“Was it nice?” Nick asks. He wonders what he would do if he could just do whatever he liked – the first thing that comes to mind is kissing Alex, but he’s tried that once before and it didn’t turn out so great.

“Being an absolute disappointment to my father? Oh, it was great,” Alex says. He pushes his glasses back up his nose. “I mean, I made that choice, I decided that I’d disappoint him. And before I always tried so hard to please him and I just never could. He came to a game once and I scored two goals and everything he had to say to me afterwards was about things I could have done better.”

“That must have sucked,” Nick says. His dad, and his mom, have only ever been proud of him. There is nothing he could have done to disappoint them, not when it comes to his career. Even if he’d been the last player to get drafted, even if he’d never won the Cup, or the Calder, or any trophy at all, even if he’d decided that he didn’t want to play hockey after all, they would have supported him. He can’t even imagine what his life would have been like if he hadn’t known that his parents would be proud of him no matter what.

“I’m mostly over it.” Alex shrugs. “Mattie hated him. Even before he met him.”

“Mattie, your liney?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, “my liney.” It just takes him a few seconds too long to say it and Alex seems to realize as well. “I usually don’t talk about him,” he adds. “He was… I mean, he was the best friend I had back then. And he… Never mind. Doesn’t matter. You’re not…” Alex shakes his head. “Sorry. It’s just… whenever I even bring up his name when I talk to my parents, they get that look on their faces, you know, like I’m about to have a breakdown, and you don’t.”

“Tell me about him,” Nick says. “If you want.”

Alex looks at him for a long moment and says, “Mattie was one of the good guys. You know? Those guys that keep the locker room together, because everyone loves them? He was one of those guys.”

Nick smiles. He knows those guys. Connor is one of those guys.

“When someone was sick, he was always the first one to check on them, when anyone needed help, he was the first one who replied, one time he… We were hanging out and one of the guys was stuck in Hartford in the middle of the night and Mattie left to get him.”

“That’s nice,” Nick says.

Alex stares at him for a long moment. “Mattie didn’t deserve this,” he says. “It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do anything wrong.” He sighs. “Can I tell you something that no one was ever supposed to know? I think it’s okay if I tell you.”

Nick nods.

“I think he was in love with me,” Alex says.

“Oh,” Nick says.

“Yeah. And I think I was a little bit in love with him, too.”

Nick never knows what to say in situations like this one. This is miles and miles out of his comfort zone. He instinctively wants to reach out and take Alex’s hand, but he tells himself not to.

“We were never really serious about it,” Alex says. “We couldn’t be, because it wouldn’t have worked out in the long run. I mean, I was going to play for the Eagles and he was going to play for the Seals, and hockey was always bigger than everything else.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. There’s nothing else he has to add to that. He knows how that story goes, he knows it from beginning to end.

Alex nods. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry you lost him,” Nick whispers. He still doesn’t know what to say, he doesn’t know how to cheer people up, unless he’s talking to overwhelmed rookies or teammates who can’t seem to get out of a slump. But maybe this isn’t about cheering Alex up. It’s about letting him be sad, and sticking around.

Alex takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” Nick says again and scoots closer to Alex so he can put his hand on his back. For a moment, Nick isn’t sure if it’s the right thing to do and is almost convinced that Alex will pull away.

But then Alex says, “Thanks,” and leans into him, so Nick wraps his arms around him properly.


	62. snow, Chapter 12.6

**snow**

 

**Chapter 12.6**

 

*

 **Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I think we have enough snow, I’m ready for spring now

 

 **CedarMillsRink**  @cedarmillsrink

The rink will be open from 2-8 pm today. Back to regular hours on Thursday!

*

Sarah wakes up with something tickling her nose. She swats at it and turns her head, only to get her nose tickled again. She blinks and realizes that she probably just halfway inhaled a strand of Nadira’s hair. Sarah carefully plucks it off her face.

The light filtering in through Sarah’s curtains is bright, which is the first hint of the mountains of snow that have likely accumulated overnight. Sarah reaches out and flicks the switch for her bedside lamp. She doesn’t need it; she just wants to see if it’ll turn on. It does, so at last she doesn’t have to worry about whether or not she’ll be able to shower this morning.

Sarah turns it off again and glances over at Nadira, who’s curled up on her side, wrapped into a blanket. She wouldn’t share the duvet with Sarah, because, “Sarah, I’ll tell you now, I’m absolutely going to try to steal it.”

So Sarah found her a blanket, and Nadira is clearly happy with it.

It’s still early, but Sarah should find out if she’s expected to show up at the rink today. She grabs her phone and shoots Alex a text, although he might not even be awake yet. And it’s technically Alex’s day off.

She puts her phone back down and rolls over to wrap her arm around Nadira.

“Hmm, hey.”

“Hey,” Sarah whispers.

“Time to get up?”

“Probably soon. When do you have to be at work?”

“Hmmm–  _Crap_.” Nadira bolts up straight, her eyes wide. “I gotta go.”

“What? Why?”

“I have Alex’s car. He probably needs it back. Shit. Where did I put my phone?”

“Windowsill.”

Nadira gets tangled in her blanket and falls over. “Nooo.” She looks over her shoulder at Sarah. “You’re grinning. I can see that you’re grinning and this is not funny. I know I look like a helpless burrito, but… not funny.”

“It is a bit funny,” Sarah says. She sits up and grabs Nadira’s phone for her. “You have… no messages.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“He’s probably still asleep. The rink doesn’t even open until ten.”

Nadira sighs and wiggles until she’s back next to Sarah. “I should still get going. Probably have to dig up the car.”

“Have you checked if you can even go anywhere?” Sarah says. Maybe the streets are covered in snow. And they have to stay in bed. All day.

“I mean, I’d love it if I just couldn’t leave,” Nadira says and sticks one arm out of her blanket burrito to take Sarah’s hand. “I should have just taken my own car, but Alex’s car has four-wheel drive.”

“I still can’t believe that you drove here in a snowstorm.”

“Well, it wasn’t really a snowstorm when I left,” Nadira says. “It was more like… a very energetic snow flurry.”

“I don’t even know what you’re saying right now.”

Nadira laughs and Sarah’s bed shakes a little. “Okay, I’m gonna go. I’m gonna get out of this blanket and act like a grown-ass adult.”

“Yay, I support you,” Sarah says.

Nadira smiles and lets go of Sarah’s hand but she makes up for it by leaning over to kiss Sarah’s cheek before she pushes away her blanket and crawls over to the window. Sarah’s cheeks feel like they’re on fire. She’d totally forgotten what this feels like. To like someone. And to find out that they like you back. Kissing them for the first time. And the second time. And the third time. At some point you stop counting, but it doesn’t stop feeling special.

She can’t even remember when kissing Nate stopped feeling special. It happened slowly, over time. Once they moved to Boston, things changed for them, and Sarah changed, too. She figured out that she ultimately didn’t want the same things that Nate wanted.

Sarah already knows that this will be different with Nadira. Because Nadira would never ask her to stop playing hockey, not for anything. Nadira gets her; that’s why Sarah likes her so much.

“The streets look okay,” Nadira says.

“Ugh.”

Nadira turns to look at her. “I feel ya.” She brushes her hair out of her face and casually twirls it into a bun that she lets go again a moment later. “So, we’re still on for Friday?”

“We are.”

“And then we’ll just take things from there.”

Sarah nods. “We will.”

They both get dressed and dig up Alex’s car so Nadira can go back home. It’s not too bad, since she parked it next to a fence that mostly kept the snow off one side of the car.

Nadira hugs her before she leaves – “I still haven’t brushed my teeth, so let’s save the kisses for Friday, okay?”

“Okay,” Sarah says and tries not to sound disappointed.

She can wait until Friday. It’s only a couple of days and it’s definitely worth the wait.

*

When Alex wakes up, his feet are cold, but there’s something warm plastered against his back and there’s an arm wrapped around his waist.

Looks like he and Nick fell asleep.

He’s not even surprised; he was tired last night. Nick asked about East Harbor and Alex ended up telling him about Mattie. He didn’t mean to in the beginning, but then he realized that Nick was probably one of the very few people in the world he could talk to about Mattie without having to leave out a big part of the story. He’s never told anyone else that he and Mattie were… Well, he’s still not sure what they were.

They weren’t boyfriends. Maybe friends with benefits, but he feels like that doesn’t do it justice either. They were more than that.

Alex told Mattie he was gay early on, because Mattie was the kind of guy who told off the guys in the room for making dumb jokes and rolled his eyes and apologized to people on his teammates’ behalf. And then Mattie told him the truth, too, and that was the first time Alex didn’t feel quite so alone anymore. The first time Mattie kissed him, on Alex’s birthday, out on the back porch of the house Alex lived in with a bunch of guys, Alex wasn’t sure if he could do it – hide, lie to everyone, constantly be scared that someone might find out – but after a while he wasn’t so scared anymore, or maybe he didn’t care as much.

Mattie would always stay in his room, telling everyone that the house was closer to the rink than his dorm room, and no one ever questioned it, because Mattie’s dorm was all the way across campus and the house was just a short walk away from the rink.

Alex feels a little guilty for unloading all of that on Nick, but it felt good to finally tell someone. He did tell Finn part of the story way back when he first started working at the rink, but at that point Alex didn’t know how to talk about it yet. It’s different now. Alex’s doesn’t feel like he can’t breathe when he thinks about Mattie, not anymore. He’s still sad every time he thinks about him, though. First and foremost, Mattie was his best friend, and part of Alex will never stop missing him.

With a quiet sigh, Alex carefully stretches his legs. Nick is curled against him from head to toe and Alex honestly isn’t sure if he should wake him up or not. Alex just wants to keep his eyes closed and go back to sleep, but he has a feeling that the heating isn’t on, as warm as Nick is against his back. Alex blinks at his alarm clock and it’s not telling him what time it is, which means the power’s out, although it’s not terribly cold in his room yet, which means it can’t have been long.

It’s already getting light out, which means Alex should get out of bed. If the power is out here, it’s probably also out at the rink, which isn’t an immediate problem. The ice doesn’t melt instantly, but it will melt if it doesn’t get fixed soon.

He needs to get up and start the generator, he needs to check on Byron, and he needs to check if his plow guy has been here and he has to check on the rink, but he also doesn’t have a car right now, because Nadira likely isn’t back yet. He’ll have to ask Connor if he can borrow his car. Because Alex does have another car, but he’s sure as hell not taking the Mustang out in this mess.

“Crap,” Alex says.

Alex can feel when Nick wakes up a split-second later, because he suddenly tenses and gives Alex a little squeeze before he lets out a quiet gasp.

“Don’t freak out,” Alex says, as gently as he can, because he already knows that Nick will freak the fuck out. Alex would also freak the fuck out if he was in Nick’s position. “It’s just me.”

“Shit,” Nick says.

“Nicky. It’s fine.”

There’s a long pause. Nick doesn’t move. “Is it really?” he whispers.

“I swear, it’s okay.”

“Okay,” Nick echoes and relaxes, just a little bit. He’s still snuggled against Alex, and Alex can feel the puff of his breath against the back of his neck. Slowly, he pulls away his arm. “What time is it?”

“No idea,” Alex says. His phone is still in the kitchen. “Power must have gone out. I’ll go get the generator started, but I can’t, like, run the whole house with it, so maybe we should go downstairs. I can start a fire.”

Nick hums.

Alex climbs out of bed and grabs a blanket that he throws at Nick. “Here.”

“I don’t n–”

“Just take the blanket, Nicky,” Alex grumbles and shuffles out into the hallway and downstairs. He takes Nick into the living room and grabs his phone from the kitchen counter. He has a text from Sarah, asking if the rink’s open today. Alex tells her that he doesn’t know yet. He has another one from Nadira, telling him that she’s on her way home. At least he doesn’t have to worry about how he’ll get to the rink.  He starts the fire in the living room first and then leaves to take care of the generator, Byron at his heels.

“Maybe we should just go somewhere for breakfast,” Nick says when Alex returns.

“Where?” Alex asks. “If we don’t have power, I highly doubt that anyone else around here does. I mean, they usually fix main street first, also the grids connected to schools. The rink’s close to the elementary school, so if I’m lucky, my ice won’t melt.”

“Are you opening the rink today if you have power?” Nick asks.

“Not sure. Everyone’s gonna have a lot to deal with at home, but if we have power, I’m definitely opening it. We had a pretty big snowstorm last year and the rink had power, so a lot of people came by to take a shower and, like, charge their phones.”

It’s technically Alex’s day off, but he needs to go over there and check up on things.

Nick, wearing the blanket Alex handed him like a cape, sits down in front of the fire. Emily, who apparently spent the night on Byron’s cushion comes over to him and curls up in his lap.

Alex grins and holds up his phone. “Hey, Nicky…” Nick looks up and Alex snaps a picture. “I’ll send it to you, you can put it on the cat’s Instagram.”

Nick makes a face. “It’s not for pictures of  _me_.”

“Technicalities,” Alex says.

Nick smirks.

“Cereal?” Alex asks.

“Do you have anything that’s not Fruit Loops? Because I know that Waldo loves them and–”

“Cheerios?”

Nick nods.

Alex gets two bowls of cereal, Cheerios for Nick, Cinnamon Toast Crunch for himself, and sits down in front of the fire with him.

“Hey, guys,” Connor says as he shuffles into the living room a few minutes later. “I think I just saw your car in the driveway.”

“Nadi,” Alex says.

Connor hums and shuffles past them, into the kitchen. He returns with a bowl of Fruit Loops and joins Alex and Nick.

“How are you feeling?” Nick asks.

“Better,” Connor says, but he doesn’t actually look like he’s feeling a hundred percent.

Nadira comes bursting into the living room a moment later, takes one look at them, nods, and then disappears again, only to come back into the living room with a bowl of Lucky Charms. She flops down next to Connor and says, “Main Street has power.”

“Good,” Alex says. He stares at Nadira, expecting that she’ll have something else to share, given the reason she took off all of a sudden yesterday afternoon.

Nick and Connor seems to be curious, too, both of them looking at her, waiting.

Nadira stares back at them for a few long seconds, then she says, “Yeah, so, Sarah and I are gonna go out on a date on Friday.”

“Aw,” Connor says, “I’m gonna miss it, because we’re gonna be on the road.”

Nadira huffs at him. “You weren’t invited anyway.”

“Colorado, right?” Alex asks. He remembers Connor saying that he’d be hanging out with Shane on Friday.

“Yep. We’re gonna be there for their Pride Night,” Connor says.

“Taking your duties as ambassador seriously, I see,” Nadira says. “I hope you wrap your entire body in rainbow tape.”

“Oh, for sure. I’m gonna wrap the entire team in rainbow tape.”

“How did you end up being the Cardinals’ ambassador anyway?” Alex asks. Connor mentioned it in passing and Alex said something non-committal like,  _Good for you_. Finn was a great deal more excited when he found out.

Connor shrugs. “They asked who wanted to do it and I wanted to do it.”

“When is your Pride Night?” Nadira asks.

“End of the month,” Connor says. “You wanna come?”

Nadira holds out her fist and Connor bumps it. “Thanks for supporting the gays by giving me free hockey tickets.”

“You can bring Sarah, too,” Connor says with a wink.

Nadira points her spoon at him. “Yes, but also… let’s see how that date goes first.” She gets up with a groan. “All right, I gotta dig up my car and then I gotta go to work. See you guys later.”

“Do you need help with the car?” Alex asks.

Nadira waves him off. “I’m a big girl. Thanks for letting me borrow yours yesterday.”

“Are you gonna be okay getting to work?”

“Sure, roads are mostly okay, I think.”

Connor sneezes as Nadira departs. “Shit,” he says. “I should go back to bed until we have to leave for morning skate. Nick, do you want me to give you and Emily a ride home first?”

“I can give him a ride,” Alex says. “I’m going to the rink in a bit anyway.”

“Thank you, I love you so much.” Connor bends down to give Emily a pat. “And I love you.” He absent-mindedly pats Nick’s head as well and wanders off.

“I’m a little worried,” Nick says, but he looks highly amused.

“He’ll be okay.”

Nick laughs. “I hope so.”


	63. pride, Chapter 13.1

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.1**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Our boys are looking fancy and they’re headed for Denver. Hope you’re ready for this @ColoradoHawks!

|

**Colorado Hawks**  @ColoradoHawks

Our 4-game win streak says yes!

*

“Is Connor already gone?”

“Yeah, they’re flying to Denver after morning skate,” Alex says. He’s emptying the dishwasher and Nadira feels a sudden pang of guilt, because she hasn’t touched that dishwasher ever since she moved in.

She’s done other things, but she really hasn’t been the most helpful when it came to cleaning. It’s her least favorite thing. She’d rather do the grocery shopping and take things to the post office for everyone. Not that anyone in this house has to do a lot of cleaning in the first place; Alex has a cleaner that comes by every two weeks. Nadira has offered to chip in, but Alex told her that his parents insist on taking care of the house. Whatever that means.

Alex puts away the last stack of plates, then he turns to Nadira. “What do you need?”

“Nothing, I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t wanna bug you,” Nadira says. Alex already has enough going on. There’s a tree down in the backyard and he’s been shoveling snow to make sure they can all get to their cars safely and he’s been at the rink, making sure people could come by to charge their phones and use the wifi if they didn’t have power at home.

“Well,” Alex says and grabs his mug from the counter, “go ahead and bug me.”

“Okay, here’s the thing…” Nadira says. She’s actually proud of herself because she’s still talking like a normal person and isn’t just screaming like she wants to. “Remember when I told you that I’m going out on a date with Sarah tomorrow?”

Alex’s lips twitch. “I remember.”

Nadira narrows her eyes at him, because it almost looks like he finds all of this amusing. Okay, maybe it was sort of funny to him how she was bouncing up and down when she told him about Sarah. Maybe there was some screeching, too. Once she was done being excited, though, Nadira realized that there were still about a thousand ways to fuck this up.

She needs to talk about them. All 1000 of them.

“So,” Nadira says, “let’s say we go out, but we both realize that this was a mistake and that we don’t want to take things further, what if people feel like they need to pick sides?”

“If there are no crimes or felonies committed on either side, I don’t think I’ll be in the mood to do that. Sarah works at the rink. You live here,” Alex says. “I’m so not picking a side if this doesn’t work out.”

“I understand, but I’m also deeply, deeply hurt that you didn’t immediately agree to take  _my_  side.”

Alex gives her an unimpressed look.

“What if I hurt her feelings?” Nadira asks.

“You apologize.”

“What if she hurts my feelings?”

“Then hopefully she’ll apologize,” Alex says. “Nadi, this comes from someone who spent a lot of time not doing things… sometimes you just  _have to_  do things.”

“Do things…”

“Yeah, like go out on a date and be unsure if it’ll work out.”

Nadira glares at him. “I haven’t been out on a date in several million years. I don’t even know how that works anymore.”

“I–”

“And, then if it goes well… I mean, we kissed and it was great, but, you know what happens after that… like, the sex.”

Alex nods. “Sure. Yeah. The sex.”

“Ugh…” Nadira tries to lie down on the counter, but it’s not working so well. “I’ve forgotten how sex works.”

“I’m sure you’ll remember,” Alex says.

Nadira looks up so she can make a face at him. She is kinda curious about Alex’s love life. She’d never ask, because she knows she wouldn’t get an answer anyway. And because it’d probably be a bit rude. She’s pretty sure that Alex hasn’t brought anyone home since she moved in, though.

“Nadi.”

“Yes? Do I look like I’m having an existential crisis? Because I am.”

“It’ll be okay.”

“Is sex like riding a bicycle?” Nadira asks. “Like, you never forget how to do it?”

Alex shrugs. “I guess.”

“You know, I’ve had sex with a lot of people, but–”

Alex shifts uncomfortably.

“I’m oversharing,” Nadira says. “I’m sorry. The point is that I was never nervous about this sort of thing.”

“I get that.”

“I want it to be good for her.”

Alex nods, lips pressed together. “I get that, too.”

It seems that they’re reaching a point in this conversation where Alex is only sticking around because he’s too polite to bail on her. “Okay, one more thing and then I’ll leave you alone.”

Alex smirks.

“So, let’s say things work out between us, yeah? So we start dating and we’re in a relationship and I’ve remembered how sex works and everything’s just peachy, but I still have a job, right? And I’ll be writing about Sarah’s team. Is that a conflict of interest?”

Alex tilts his head ever so slightly, now looking more thoughtful than before. “I… don’t know.”

“Shit. It is, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know, I mean, it’s not like this is politics or something. And you’re working for a Hartford-based paper, so you’re supposed to be a little bit biased, right?”

“I suppose so?”

“Well, see how it goes,” Alex says. “The date, I mean.”

“Right. Okay. Take it one step at a time.”

Alex nods. “Yeah. That.”

“Sure, I can do that.”

“Okay…” Alex gives her shoulder a squeeze. “I’ll see you later, all right?”

“Yeah, and just so you know, I need you to help me pick out something to wear later, okay?”

“Uh…”

“Please?”

Alex shuffles towards the door, grinning at Nadira over his shoulder. “I’ll do what I can.”

“You’re the best,” Nadira calls after him.

*

“Hey, Ash,” Sarah says as she walks up to the front office. “Alex sent me a text, he said that you guys needed someone to help out?”

“Yeah, thank you so much for coming.” Ashley gives her a fleeting smile. “I’ve been in here and doing the rentals at the same time. Karen had to go home, she wasn’t feeling well and Alex is downstairs coaching the peewee team because their coach is… Honestly, I’m not sure what’s going on, you should ask Alex.”

“Wait, Alex is coaching?” Sarah asks.

“Yep.” Ashley grins. “Rink 2… if you don’t believe me.”

There’s no one waiting at the rental booth, so Sarah doesn’t actually feel bad about going down the hallway to have a peek into Rink 2.

Down on the ice, Alex is sitting on the boards by the home team’s bench and he’s surrounded by nearly two dozen tiny hockey players, most of them listening attentively to what he’s telling them. He’s pointing at the goal and the blue line with one hand and he’s holding a whistle in the other, and it looks like he has everything totally under control.

Not that Sarah thought for a moment that Alex didn’t have everything under control. Coaching kids can be hard, though. Coaching grown-ass adults can be hard, too, as a matter of fact. The point is that Alex actually looks comfortable down there.

Sarah smiles at him, even though he can’t see her, then she sets up camp in the rental booth. She doesn’t mind doing rentals, although it can get ridiculously busy at times. It’s the worst on weekends and Sarah is honestly glad that she never works both days on a weekend. Alex has really made an effort to arrange her schedule around her games.

It’s easy to tell when the kids are done with practice – their parents start to arrive to pick them up and not too long after they all leave with their equipment bags, laughing and chattering excitedly.

Sarah knows some of them – Leanna Brinkstone comes over for a high five. She’s one of the team’s goalies and Sarah definitely doesn’t want to play favorites, but… Leanna Brinkstone is her favorite. She got a huge Panthers shirt for Christmas that she asked Sarah to sign, and when she did, she leaned in close and said, “Sarah Albright, when I’m all grown up, I want to be just like you.”

The figure skaters start to arrive and Ashley is starting to get antsy over in the front office. Alex is probably still down in Rink 2, getting the ice ready for the next session.

When he comes down the hall a few minutes later, he waves at Sarah in passing. Ashley is already halfway out the front office at that point and her and Alex quickly trade places so Alex can ring up the rest of the skaters who are here for figure skating classes or to practice on their own.

Finn arrives a moment later, carrying a bunch of Starbucks coffees. He hands one of them to Alex, then he marches over to Sarah and hands her one, too. “It’s hot chocolate. I hear we’re having a rough day around here.”

“Thank you,” Sarah says.

Finn waves her off and marches down the hall, bag slung over his shoulder. He tosses the empty paper tray into a trash can on the way and pulls his phone out of his pocket. It takes about a second for him to stop in his tracks, turn around, and come back trudging towards them, looking extra grouchy.

“So,” Finn says, “my private lesson just got canceled because the kid has the flu. Guess they couldn’t have told me… I don’t know, an hour ago.” He glares at Sarah, then at Alex. “Why do we only have one person in the rental booth?”

“Because  _everyone_  has the flu,” Alex says.

“You want me to clock in?”

“That’d be great, because the public skate ends in like fifteen minutes and I need to leave to get the ice ready for the next one.”

Finn salutes him and shuffles away to the office in the back. When he returns, he ends up in the front office, so Alex can do his thing downstairs. Eventually, Alex joins Sarah in the rental booth, and she’s never been so glad to have someone else around. A lot of people are coming and going and no one’s as efficient with the rentals as Alex.

Once the rush is over, Alex leans against the counter with a sigh.

“It’s been mad, huh?” Finn asks from across the hall.

“Seriously. Half of my staff is sick and Coach Harvey’s wife called earlier to tell me that she’s taken him to the hospital.”

“That bad?” Sarah asks.

“I’m not sure,” Alex says. “She said she’d give me an update as soon as she can, but I’m pretty sure that’s not her most immediate concern.”

Finn makes a face. “Poor kiddos.”

“They actually didn’t look like they were having a bad time with you, Alex.”

“Wait a second,” Finn says and points at Alex. “ _You_  coached the kiddos?”

“There was no one else here. It’s a peewee team and it’s all on a voluntary basis. Their assistant coach is Sam Gardener’s mom and she’s on a business trip in China right now.”

“So are you gonna coach them until Harvey comes back?” Finn asks. “Ohh, can I bedazzle your whistle?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

“You don’t know about coaching or about the whistle?”

“Both,” Alex says.

Finn is distracted when two girls with figure skates arrive and they strike up a conversation. They’re likely in one of Finn’s group classes, or maybe he used to teach them when they were kids. Sometimes it seems like everyone knows everyone around here.

“Thanks for coming back,” Alex says to Sarah. “Makes things a lot easier.”

“Sure, no worries.”

Alex smiles. “How’s everything going?”

“Good,” Sarah says.

“Good,” Alex echoes.

When Sarah came to the rink yesterday, Alex gave her one look and she immediately knew that he’d already heard about her and Nadira, but they haven’t really talked about it yet. Honestly, Sarah isn’t sure if Alex really wants to know what exactly is going on there.

“I’m going out with Nadi tomorrow,” she says and tries to make it sound as casual as possible.

“Yeah, uh, I’ve heard.”

“Right,” Sarah says. “Did Nadi… say anything?”

Alex nods. “She said you guys were going out on a date tomorrow.”

“Yeah, I know, but… did she say anything else?”

Alex gives her a look that very clearly says,  _As if I’d tell you if she did._

“Fair enough,” Sarah mumbles. “You know, I’m really excited.” She can almost hear the  _but_ hanging in the air.

Alex clearly heard it, too, because he raises his eyebrows at her.

“Are you sure you want to hear this?” Sarah asks.

“Well, yeah, and speak up because I want to hear it, too,” Finn says.

“Just come over here while no one’s coming,” Alex says.

Finn smirks. “Oh, may I? I don’t want my boss to think that I’m slacking.”

“Whatever,” Alex says.

“So, the thing is,” Sarah says as Finn basically prances over to them, “if things work out with Nadi, and I really want things to work out, like,  _really_ , but… if she ends up being my girlfriend, I’m gonna have to tell my parents, and my mom… she’s…”

It’s hard to explain. Her mom isn’t downright homophobic. She didn’t yell at Sarah when she told her she was bi, she didn’t threaten to disown her. But Sarah still knows that her mom has a problem with it. She could feel it back then, and she knows she’ll feel it again when she tells her parents about Nadira.

“Is she… difficult?” Finn asks.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“What about your dad?”

“Oh, he doesn’t care. And I mean that in the best way possible. He’s totally willing to just let me do my thing.”

The real problem is that she’s so convinced that her mom won’t be okay with this that she’s not even sure if he wants to tell her about Nadira at all. But she can’t just not tell her about Nadira, right? And once she tells her mom, she will have so many things to say about this and she won’t rest until she’s said them all.

Maybe Sarah can get around an awkward dinner for a while, but Nadira and her parents will meet eventually and it’s going to be an absolute disaster, because Sarah’s mom is going to be passive-aggressive and her dad will try to make up for it somehow and her mom will get angry and her dad will get very quiet and– The point is, Sarah isn’t looking forward to any of that.

“I like your dad,” Finn says. He shuffles back over to the front office when a couple of girls arrive.

Some of them have their own skates, some of them come over to the rental booth and Sarah is busy trying to find the right sizes for them for a bit. She isn’t in the rental booth that often; she’s mostly in the front office or she’s sharpening skates. On Wednesdays, when Alex isn’t here, she drives the Zamboni.

“What’s going to happen to the peewee team?” Sarah asks once the girls have moved on. Sarah really doesn’t want to get into another conversation about her parents.

“I’m not sure. They might need an interim coach until their assistant coach comes back from China if Coach Harvey can’t come back next week. The kids have a game on Sunday and I might help them out again if no one else can. As I said earlier, I don’t really know what’s going on yet.”

Sarah grins. “Aw, Coach Alex.”

“Listen…”

“Come on, it’s cute,” Sarah says. “The kiddos love you.”

Alex only shrugs.

“You know, if you like the whole coaching thing… East Harbor is apparently going to make some changes in their coaching staff for both teams over the summer.”

“Are they?”

“A friend of mine thought I might be interested,” Sarah says.

Alex raises his eyebrows at her. “It sounds like you’re not, though?”

“I actually don’t know if I am,” Sarah says. “But if you are…”

“Actually, I don’t know if I am either,” Alex says.

Sarah laughs. When she looks over at Alex a minute or so later, it does look like he’s a little lost in thought. Maybe at least one of them will get something out of this.


	64. pride, Chapter 13.2

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.2**

 

*

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

you guys!! I found Waldo!!!

 

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

he’s on my couch

*

The Cardinals arrive at the team hotel in Denver on Thursday afternoon – first stop on a four-game West Coast roadie.

There are no team activities scheduled for today; they had a morning skate back in Silver Lakes this morning and then they all left for the airport together. Everyone on the plane was a in a good mood, playing games and chatting, passing around food, and snapping photos for their social media.

Now that they’re at the hotel, Nick feels like he could just go to bed now and sleep until tomorrow morning. It’s a few hours later in Connecticut after all.

Connor flops down on his bed with a groan. “Okay, I’m gonna take a teensy nap,” he says as he wiggles out of his suit pants. “And then I’m off to Wilder’s place.”

Nick hangs up his suit jacket and picks up Connor’s, too.

“Ugh, you’re better at being an adult than I am,” Connor grumbles, watching him from his bed.

Nick shrugs. Most of the time he feels like he’s pretty terrible at being an adult. He still puts stuff in the dryer that definitely shouldn’t go in there and when he had to hire a cat sitter, he nearly gave himself an aneurism, and if he didn’t have all the help that he has, he probably wouldn’t have gotten anything done in the past five years.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“How much do you love me?” Connor says.

Nick snorts. He hears that one a lot when they’re on the road. “What do you need?”

“Can you throw me one of the shirts from my suitcase? Doesn’t matter which one.”

“Sure…”

Once the rest of Connor’s suit is at the end of the bed and he’s curled up on his side in a Cardinals shirt, Nick gets out of his own suit and tries to go to sleep as well, but he just can’t seem to find a comfortable position.

He rolls over and grabs his phone from the nightstand. The boys are talking about where they’re going to head for dinner tonight in the team’s group chat. Nick tells them that he’ll go have burgers with them, then he replies to a text from his mom and sends her a picture he took on the plane earlier. He hasn’t heard from his cat sitter yet, but there’s a good chance that she hasn’t been to his house yet. He’s not too worried about Emily; Ashley recommended the cat sitter Nick ended up hiring.

He gives napping another try, but he reaches for his phone again no five minutes later. Nick isn’t really sure what keeps him from falling asleep today. He starts opening random apps and eventually pulls up his texts. His mom hasn’t replied yet and the group chat has become quiet, too. Most of the guys are probably taking a nap.

Nick eventually pulls up his last conversation with Alex and says,  _How’s everything going?_

There’s no real reason for him to talk to Alex at all right now, but– Whatever. He wants to.

Nick isn’t really expecting an instantaneous reply, but he gets a text from Alex about ten seconds later.

 

**[Alex]**

_rink’s been busy but we’re handling it. how’s denver?_

_Snowy_ , Nick replies. A second later, he figures that a one-word reply is probably kind of rude, especially since he was the one who texted Alex in the first place, so he adds,  _I love it here, though, it’s one of my favorite cities to play in_.

 

**[Alex]**

_I’ve never been, but I’ll take your word for it_

Nick can’t decide if he should reply, since Alex has already told him that he’s busy at work. He started this, though, so he says,  _You should go someday. Hope everything goes well at the rink!_

He puts his phone down on the other pillow and closes his eyes. Then he opens them again. Great, now he won’t go to sleep until he’s sure that Alex won’t reply anymore. A moment later his phone lights up.

 

**[Alex]**

_yeah should be an easy evening. it was much worse earlier, I had to coach the kids and sarah had to come by to help but now it’s just public skate and hockey practice_

Nick stares at the text for a good minute before he replies –  _You coached the peewee team?_  He’s already convinced that Alex did a fantastic job with the kids. He’d do a fantastic job coaching any team. Alex is good at explaining plays in a way that makes sense and you can tell that he actually spends quite some time thinking about his praise and his criticisms. It’s easy to respect him.

 

**[Alex]**

_their coach is sick and they were already here… long story. I’ll tell you when you’re back_

_Cool_ , says Nick. He’ll be back home in, what? Eight days? Nine? He doesn’t even know. This is going to be a long road trip. And he usually doesn’t mind being on the road, but these are the games that are the hardest to win. He knows it must be a lot harder on guys who have families at home. He only has a cat.

Anyway. It’s only four games. Then he gets to go home, hug Emily, and sleep in his own bed.

*

Connor is only ten minutes late when he shows up at Shane’s place. He’s pretty damn proud of himself.

It’s weird to come back here. He used to live in this house, too. As he walks up to the door, he can see the window of his old bedroom. The lights are out. No one lives in there anymore. Shane had one of the farm team’s guys live here for a few weeks not too long ago, but it sort of makes Connor feel better that he hasn’t been replaced.

Shane yanks the door open before Connor even has a chance to ring the doorbell.

“Eyy,” Shane says and pulls Connor into a hug.

“Hey, buddy.”

Shane pulls him over the threshold and into the house, still holding on to him. “I thought they might not take you, because you missed the game last night.”

“Eh, I’m fine,” Connor says. He just wasn’t feeling so great, but there was no way that he was missing this roadie. Him not playing last night was really more of a precaution. He was feeling better already when the game started, so he’s reasonably sure that he could have actually played.

“I got food from the Grill.”

“Ohhh, you’re amazing,” Connor says and makes for the kitchen. The Grill is between here and the Hawks’ practice rink and Connor and Shane used to stop there way too often on the way home from practice.

Shane got them burgers with extra bacon and garlic fries and milkshakes and they eat it on the couch and they put on a game – Seals vs Wildcats. They’re not really paying attention, though. They just have too much to say.

Sometimes they talk on the phone, and they send texts back and forth pretty much daily, but it’s not the same as sitting on the same couch and sharing a bowl full of garlic fries like they used to.

It’s weird how nothing about this place has changed since Connor moved out.  It’s only Shane’s crap lying around now, but it almost feels like Connor still belongs here.

“So,” Shane says, “you’re doing the ambassador thing?”

“I knew you were gonna bring it up eventually,” Connor mutters and takes another fry. Shane never said anything when they were texting, but it was only a matter of time.

“Obviously.” Shane grins. “Did they make you?”

“What? No. I think Mike was thinking about maybe doing it and Yoshi also volunteered to do it, he did it last year, too, but he let me do it.”

“How generous,” Shane says. “Saint Roy.”

“Shut up, Yoshi’s a great guy.”

“Hm…” Shane shrugs dismissively and Connor can hardly blame him. Yoshi seems like a pretty boring hockey dude at first glance. Charitable, yes, friendly, approachable, but ultimately quiet and not exactly exciting to be around when he’s not playing hockey.

Connor feels like he also isn’t that exciting to be around, but he’s kind of okay with that.

“Is Robbie doing it again for the Hawks?” Connor asks.

Shane nods. “I mean, it makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Sure does,” Connor says. Robbie’s sister Jo is a hockey player, too. She plays in DC as far as Connor knows and she’s engaged to one of her teammates. It’s not a secret and no one was actually surprised when Robbie instantly agreed to be the ambassador last year.

Connor barely even had time to think about it last season and it made sense for Robbie to do it, but now that he’s in Connecticut and the Cardinals were looking for someone new to do it, it seemed like a good idea. It’s not like they’re expecting him to do too many extra things… which is probably bad, now that he thinks about it. Just a few extra interviews, some pride tape, and that’s it. Connor should definitely do more than that.

Shane is still giving him that look. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a typical  _Shane_  look. An  _I’m seeing right through you_  kind of look.

“What?” Connor grumbles.

“I just didn’t think it’s something you’d want to do.”

Connor shrugs. “I have some friends who are gay, so I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Shane’s look only becomes more pronounced. “Oh, you have some friends who are gay, huh? Friends? Plural?”

Making an effort to look as unimpressed as possible, Connor says, “Yeah, you’re not the only one.”

That actually seems to throw Shane off. “Really? I’m not the only one?”

“Yeah. Really. My roommate Nadira has a girlfriend. Actually, maybe they’re not together  _yet_ , but they’re getting there.”

Shane nods. “Okay.”

“And then there’s Finn,” Connor goes on.

“Okay.”

“And… that’s it. Well. Not really, there’s someone else, but that’s, like… none of my business.”

Shane raises his eyebrows at him. “Someone on your team?”

“No. I mean, if it was, I wouldn’t tell you. But no. No one on the team as far as I know, but…” He shrugs. Maybe one of them is gay; it’s not like everyone tells Connor everything. Especially when it’s something important like that.

He wouldn’t be surprised, though. Maybe he was a little surprised when Shane first told him, but he got over it pretty quickly.

“I’ve told Robbie,” Shane says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, he was cool with it. Obviously. I mean, I guess I could have told him a while ago, but whatever. It’s all good.”

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Connor says. “I’ve been worried.”

“I just sound really emo when I text you, I’m sorry,” Shane says. “It just sucks when you want a boyfriend, but you don’t want to tell anyone that you want a boyfriend, and you also can’t really have a boyfriend, because how the fuck would that work, right? Or, when you have a boyfriend, they get tired of hiding and fuck the hell off. And you can’t even blame them.”

“I’m sorry that you and Toby broke up.”

Shane huffs. “Toby is dating an accountant now. And the accountant takes him out on dates and they go for romantic walks in the park where everyone can see them. Which is exactly what he wanted, so… good for him, I guess.”

Connor nudges the box with the garlic fries closer to Shane.

“It’s okay,” Shane says. “Anyway, let’s talk about your love life.”

“There’s really nothing at all to talk about.”

“Wow, that’s depressing,” Shane says.

Connor shrugs. “Santa keeps telling me to download Tinder, but that’s not really my thing.”

“Where’d you meet Lucy?”

“At Target.”

“You met her  _at Target_?” Shane shakes his head. “Fine. So go to Target. Ask someone out. Or, like, a coffee shop. A bookstore, if you even know what that is.”

“I don’t like reading books,” Connor grumbles. He likes audio books better. He listens to them on the plane.

Shane shakes his head at him. “You make me sad.”

Connor grins. “I know.”

“Pfft…” Shane gently punches Connors arm. “Whatever, just ask someone out. And if it doesn’t work out, then it doesn’t. Just do it because you can.”

Connor makes a face. He doesn’t like that Shane has to hide like this. If Connor could change it somehow, he would do whatever it took in a heartbeat, but it’s not that easy. He can’t even begin to understand.

“Sorry, that sounded kinda guilt-trippy,” Shane says. “Do what you want.”

“I will.”

“Good. Anyway, I’m glad you decided to do the ambassador thing,” Shane says quietly.

“It’s really not a big deal.”

Shane looks at him for a moment before he says, “I’m just proud of you, s’all.”


	65. pride, Chapter 13.3

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

good things? happening in my life?? it’s more likely than you think

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

that tweet was about the Ravens somehow winning that game in overtime but it also applies to the rest of my life tonight

*

“I’m leaving,” Sarah says as she very leisurely comes strolling down the hallway.

“Uh-huh,” Ashley replies. Sarah has been leaving for about ten minutes. She was almost about the door, then she apparently remembered something she’d forgotten in the office in the back, so she went back and now she’s leaving again.

Sarah huffs and stops by the front office.

It’s quiet right now. The public skate session won’t end for another fifteen minutes and the high school team just started their practice in the other rink, so there isn’t much going on. That’ll change in a few hours, though. They don’t have the outdoor rink anymore, so the disco skate tonight will likely be packed and a lot of guys usually come around for hockey practice on Friday night as well.

“I really am leaving,” Sarah says.

“You know,” Ashley replies, “if you keep telling me that you’re leaving, you might actually end up being late for your date.”

“Listen, I’m going, I’m just–”

“You’re still here?”

Sarah makes a face.

“Leave,” Alex says as he walks up to them. “Come on. Nadi showed me about fifteen different outfits this morning, please don’t be late to look at one of those fifteen outfits.”

Sarah sighs. “I have no idea what to wear.”

“Something nice,” Alex says.

“You’re not helpful.”

Alex grins. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before. This morning, actually.” He gives her a gentle nudge. “Go home.”

Sarah looks at him, then at Ashley. “I own  _one_  dress.”

“You don’t have to wear a dress,” Ashley says. She’s 100% a dress person and she owns way too many, but it’s not like it’s a must. “You know what I wore for my first date with Jamie? Ripped jeans and an  _I Love New York_  shirt.”

“Okay, but–” Alex starts.

“Fiiine, so I didn’t know that we were going out on a date, but still.”

“It’s a completely different situation. You were in high school.”

Ashley glares at him. “You’re not helpful.”

Alex shrugs, clearly unperturbed.

“Okay, I’m leaving,” Sarah says. “I’m just gonna wear… something.” She waves at them and marches out the door, only slowing down a little before she reaches for the handle.

“Why are you like this?” Ashley asks and reaches out the office to punch Alex’s arm.

“I don’t know why people keep asking me for fashion advice.”

“True, I mean, you own like two plaid shirts and five pairs of skinny jeans.”

“Exactly,” Alex says.

Ashley snorts. Well, at least he’s self-aware. It’s always plaid shirts and skinny jeans and the occasional Cedar Mills Vikings hoodie. Not that Ashley’s wardrobe is any more exciting. She knows a thing or two about what does and doesn’t go together, but she mostly uses that knowledge to tell off Jamie for wearing clashing colors.

“When I go out on a date with Jamie, all I do is make sure that there aren’t any stains on my shirt,” Ashley says.

“Well, when I go out… Never mind, I don’t.”

“Maybe you should.”

Alex gives her the death glare. “Or maybe I shouldn’t.”

“What, are you just gonna be single forever?” Ashley asks. She’s usually not this on the nose when she talks to Alex about his personal life, because he tends to get snappy when there’s something he doesn’t want to talk about. Sometimes she’s worried about Alex, though.

Alex blinks at her for a moment. “I don’t know, Ash.”

“I know that Cedar Mills is a small place and that the people you could date are basically the people we used to go to high school with, but–”

“Yeah, can we not?” Alex says.

Ashley purses her lips, but she drops it. It’s none of her business and she doesn’t want to get into a fight about this.

“Anyway,” Alex goes on. “I’ll go do the ice once the public skate ends and then you can head down and I’ll take over, okay?”

“Sure, sounds good.” Ashley glances at the clock. The public skate isn’t over yet, so Alex doesn’t need to head downstairs immediately. She’s been meaning to talk to him, but this morning he was on the phone with Coach Harvey’s wife and then people started coming in, so she never got the chance. “Hey, Alex?” she says before he’s out of earshot.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something real quick?”

He walks a few steps back. “Yeah.”

“Be honest, okay?”

“Always am,” Alex says.

Ashley narrows her eyes at him. They both know that he’s not. Alex grins, obviously not fussed that Ashley saw right through that lie.

“How much would you hate me if I could only work part-time at some point after the summer?” Ashley asks.

“I guess I’d find a way to deal with that,” Alex says slowly.

“Yeah?”

“Ash,” Alex says, “this is your job. You can quit your job, that doesn’t mean that we’ll quit being friends.”

Ashley didn’t even know that she really needed to hear that. “Hey, I don’t wanna  _quit_ ,” she says quickly.

Alex’s lips twitch. “If you wanna go part-time, that’s fine with me. Just let me know as soon as you’re sure, okay?”

“Yeah, I will.”

Alex nods and then heads back down the hall.

Ashley isn’t exactly disappointed that Alex didn’t ask why. Alex has been asked  _why_  and  _when_ and  _how_  so much in his life that he’s become very good at giving people space and waiting for them to tell him what they need to say when they’re ready.

The thing is, Ashley could use someone to ask her  _why_  and  _when_  and  _how_  right now. But maybe that someone isn’t Alex.

*

Sarah has legitimately never been this nervous in her entire life. Not even when she told her parents that she wasn’t straight. Not even when she first moved away from home for college. Not even when she played her first professional hockey game. Not even when she played at the Olympics. Not even when she was handed her medal.

As she drives up the Goldmans’ driveway and parks outside the front steps, she tries very hard to convince herself that everything’s going to be okay. Nadira already knows her. They’ve already kissed. At least she doesn’t have to play a guessing game. She knows that Nadira actually likes her back.

This isn’t the first step; it’s the  _next_  step.

In any case, Sarah is relieved that Nadira also wants to go out on a couple of dates first just to test the waters. She can’t just jump into this; it feels much too important.

She takes a deep breath before she gets out of the car. Once she’s up the stairs, Byron is already behind the glass, barking at her, tail wagging. At least he doesn’t think she’s here for some casual Friday night breaking and entering. Sarah rings the doorbell, knowing full well that Byron has already announced her arrival to everyone inside.

The door opens and it’s Alex who’s standing in the foyer, bundled up and clearly ready to head out.

“Hey,” Alex says, “come in. I’m actually on my way back to the rink, so… have fun.”

“Thanks,” Sarah says, glancing after Alex and Byron as they make for Alex’s car. When she turns around, Nadira is coming down the stairs in a mint green dress with little flowers on it. Her shoes match the dress and Sarah suddenly feels underdressed in her black jeans and Nessie’s butterfly blouse.

Yeah. She’s not even wearing her own clothes, because she’s an absolute dating disaster.

“You look nice,” Nadira says.

“So do you,” Sarah replies, even though that’s the understatement of the year. “That’s… a dress.” And that sentence was kind of missing an adjective.

Nadira laughs. “It most certainly is.”

“I like it,” Sarah says quickly and points at the door. “Ready?”

Nadira nods, grabs her coat, and follows Sarah out the door. On the way to the restaurant that Sarah picked, they slip into an easy conversation about the Cardinals’ game against the Hawks in Colorado tonight.

“Imagine that Cup Final,” Nadira says, “Cards against Hawks. They’d be trying to out-nice each other. And then Santa would finally have enough and try to fight the Hawks’ backup goalie.”

“Fransen?”

“Yeah.” Nadira cackles. “I think he’s the only one on the Hawks who’s ever been in a fight.”

This is going well. Sarah isn’t sure why she’s surprised.

They have dinner at Jay’s Diner over in Silver Lakes. Sarah picked it because they have hockey on at least one of the TVs and she knows that Nadira might want to take a peek at the Ravens game that starts in half an hour. The Cardinals aren’t playing until later, but who knows for how long they’ll stay out.

Hopefully for a long time.

They both order a burger – chicken for Sarah, veggie for Nadira – with curly fries and they sit in a booth across from the TV that’s showing the pregame coverage for the Ravens game.

“I swear I would have totally focused on you if we’d gone to a different place.”

“I just thought you’d like it here,” Sarah says. She used to come here a lot when she was home for the summer in college. Well. Before she met Nate. After that, she usually spent her summers with him at his parents’ house on the Cape and only came home for maybe two or three weeks.

Her mom didn’t mind so much as long as she brought Nate with her on Thanksgiving and she got a chance to not to subtly drop hints about the future of their relationship into every conversation. Sarah could tell that her dad wasn’t a huge fan of her not coming home as much anymore, but he would have never actually complained. Now that football season is over, he keeps coming to her games, sometimes unannounced, introducing himself as Sarah Albright’s dad to whoever will listen.

As they wait for their food, Nadira talks about work and Sarah talks about yesterday’s practice and it seems way too easy. Is this how dates work?

Well, they got to skip the awkward part where you get to know each other and try to figure out if there’s anything about the other person that is an absolute and definite  _no_. They don’t need to do that. They don’t need to figure out if they have anything in common.

They eat burgers and Sarah very gently pulls the pickle out of hers and Nadira takes it with a serene smile on her face.

The Ravens are already halfway through the first period when Nadira looks up at the TV for the first time. “Ah, fuck, look at them, already two goals behind. Haven’t had a good pass since 2015.”

“When Ray Christensen retired?”

Nadira nods. “He kept that team together and it’s a damn shame that no one’s stepped up. They were so good and now they’re so… awful.”

Sarah reaches out to pat Nadira’s arm. “They just need some time to rebuild.”

“Yeah, like twenty-five years apparently.”

“Here,” Sarah says and hands Nadira the dessert menu, “maybe something on here will make you feel better.”

“Oh, I’m sure.”

They share a brownie ice cream sundae with two cherries on top and Sarah ties the stem of hers with her tongue, because that was her party trick in college and she knows that it’ll make Nadira laugh because it’s ridiculous.

“So,” Nadira says after dessert. “What now?”

There might not be a right answer to that question. Do they stick around? Stay for a drink? Do they go back to her place? Or to Nadira’s? And what happens if they do go back home? They really do need to talk about some things, but none of those things should be part of a conversation at Jay’s. Sarah isn’t even sure if she can say the words  _I’m not sure I remember how sex even works_  out loud at all. She’s done casual hook-ups before, but she never actually liked them much, so she hasn’t been out looking for anything like that after she broke up with Nate.

“I’m not sure,” Sarah says. “What do you wanna do?”

“Well, if you don’t wanna go home yet… I don’t really wanna go home yet.”

“We could–”

“Oh, hey,” Nadira says and nods at the window, “it’s snowing.”

“You wanna go for a walk down the street?” Sarah asks. Silver Lakes has a much better Main Street than Cedar Mills. For starters, they have more than four shops.

Nadira grins. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Sarah waves their waiter over for the check. “Is it okay with you if I pay for everything?”

“If you’re okay with me paying for whatever we do for our second date,” Nadira says. She freezes and blinks at Sarah. “If we want to do the second date thing, that is.”

“That’s okay with me,” Sarah says without missing a beat.

When they walk out of Jay’s, the snow is still falling gently and the lights in the store windows twinkle invitingly. Sarah holds out her arm and Nadira hooks hers around Sarah’s.

“Tell me if you’re getting too cold,” Sarah says with a glance at Nadira’s legs. She’s wearing tights, but Sarah doesn’t want her to come home from their first date with a cold.

“I’m fine, don’t worry.”

They stop in front of the bookstore, then they move on to  _Mimi’s Cakery_. It’s closed but there’s a display with several intricately decorated cakes behind the window. They’ve been here before with Ashley.

Nadira points at a light pink three-tier cake that’s decorated with a waterfall of flowers. “When I get married, I want a cake like that.” She clears her throat. “Okay, so, it’s probably a terrible idea to talk about getting married on a first date, and just to make sure that you don’t get me wrong, I’m talking about my hypothetical wedding and I’m not saying that you’re gonna be part of that wedding… but also don’t think that I wouldn’t wanna marry you. I just… shouldn’t have said anything about the cake, holy shit.”

“Nadi,” Sarah says, trying not to laugh, “deep breath.”

“Okay,” Nadira says.

“But, yeah, that’s a nice cake.”

“Right? So pretty.” Nadira pulls Sarah along. “Okay, let’s talk about something else. Like… you guys are totally making the playoffs. That’s awesome and I’m super stoked.”

“Ohh, me too.”

“I’m gonna try to talk Brad into letting me go to all the games. Like, even the away games. I mean, it’s only two games for you guys, so that’s a maximum of two trips if you don’t get home ice.”

“I’m honestly hoping for home ice.”

“Hard same.”

“I mean, if we play against one of the teams that are close, there might be a chance, right?” Sarah asks.

“Honestly? Brad’s probably gonna flip a coin.”

Sarah snorts. She’d love to have Nadira at their games on the road.

“I’m gonna have to talk to my boss about this,” Nadira says. “You know. About us. I’m sorry, but it’d feel wrong not to.”

“Ugh.”

“Like, not Brad. Jessica. She’s reasonable, I think she’ll be okay with it. I’m supposed to support the home team in my articles anyway.”

“I hope it’s not an issue,” Sarah says. “I’d hate for this to interfere with your job.”

Nadira huffs and her breath goes up in a cloud. “Hopefully it’ll be just fine.” She wrinkles her nose and Sarah really wants to kiss her.

“Hey…” Sarah says.

Nadira looks up at her and grins. “A snowflake just landed on your nose.”

Sarah smiles at her and leans down and Nadira meets her halfway, her fingers curled around the lapel of Sarah’s coat. It’s just a quick kiss, but Nadira’s smile is twice as bright as it was before when she pulls away.

“I hate that I’m about to say this, but…” Nadira makes a face. “Actually, I’m kinda starting to get cold.”

“Let’s head back to the car,” Sarah says and takes Nadira by the hand. It doesn’t feel awkward; it’s not something she has to think about all that much. It’s easy, and that’s what it should be like.

In the car, Sarah makes sure to turn up the heat. They don’t talk much at first, but then they get closer to Cedar Mills.

“Do you, uh…” Sarah trails off. She just wants to know where they’re going to go from here.

“Okay, so, this might sound a little ridiculous, but hear me out, yeah?” Nadira says.

“Okay?”

“So, back in New York, Dee and I lived in this apartment building and it was a little shitty, but, you know, I loved it, and we had those really nice front steps, and I was always hoping that one day a girl would walk me back there and kiss me on the front steps. But it never happened. Which is one of the great tragedies in my life.”

“You want me to kiss you on the front steps?” Sarah asks.

“Would you?”

“Absolutely.”

Sarah parks her car outside the door when they’re back at the Goldman residence. The lights are on in the foyer, but Byron isn’t there to bark at them, so Alex is still at the rink.

They both get out of the car, and they make their way up the steps, and they stop in front of the door, both of them smiling from ear to ear.

“This was nice,” Nadira says, “let’s do it again.”

Sarah nods. They’re doing all of this backwards, in a way, and they’ve kissed before, but this one feels special. She’ll remember the others – the first one when Nadira drove through a snowstorm to Sarah’s apartment, and the first one on their first date with the snow falling down on them – but Sarah knows that this one means a lot to Nadira, so she makes sure it’s a good one.

A snowflake lands on Nadira’s eyelashes when Sarah leans in. She’ll remember that, too. She feels like she’s in one of those little snow globes. A perfect moment, a scrap of a fairytale.

Although this isn’t their happily ever after. It can’t be, because that would mean that this is the end, and they’re only just starting.

“Thank you for this,” Nadira says.

“Anytime,” Sarah replies.


	66. pride, Chapter 13.4

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.4**

 

*

**Colorado Hawks**  @ColoradoHawks

Happy to be hosting the @NHLCardinals tonight as they’re joining us in celebrating our annual #YouCanPlay Night!

*

Nick isn’t superstitious about his stick and he doesn’t believe that the outcome of a game solely depends on his tape being black. If he has a choice, he never goes for the white tape, though. That’s why it seems strange to him to put rainbow-colored tape on his stick now, ahead of the Hawks’ pride night, but Nick would never back out of this. Anyway, he’ll still play with black tape. This is just for warm-ups.

Maybe it shouldn’t be just for warm-ups. He could probably use the rainbow tape during the game, but then people would ask questions, and that’s exactly what he’s trying to avoid.

When he looks around the room, there are a bunch of guys using rainbow tape instead of black or white, and he hates that he feels relieved. It’s just stick tape. In the grand scheme of things, it means very little, and for most guys it’s likely not an issue they’re really passionate about. Still, it’s nice to see Bunny covering his entire stick in rainbow tape. Across the room, the tape on Connor’s game stick is white on the blade, but it’s all rainbow at the top.

“Do you still need that?” Bunny asks, nodding at Nick’s tape.

“No, I’m all done.”

“Good,” Bunny says, takes Nick’s rainbow tape, and throws it at Jordie, who catches it with a frown on his face.

Nick doesn’t like the feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Bunny leans closer to Nick and says, “He thinks it’s silly, says it doesn’t really matter, you know? But I tell him, no, Jordie, somewhere out there someone cares that you have silly tape on your stick tonight.”

Nick swallows hard. “Yeah.” In a way, he agrees that it’s just tape and won’t change much, but maybe someone out there needs to see that tape on his stick. Maybe  _he_  needs to see that tape on his teammates’ sticks.

It looks like Bunny made a real effort with his stick, too. Nick didn’t know that anyone in their locker room really felt strongly about this or thought it was important. It always seems like the guys just go along with all those league initiatives. It’s what you do. You show up and if they want you to wear a special warm-up jersey, you don’t complain.

About half of the guys don’t bother with the rainbow tape tonight and Nick tries not to read anything into it, because it’s not their pride night after all. Back in LA, some guys didn’t use it and said they were superstitious. Nick didn’t question it and he didn’t think about it too much, because then he might have come to the conclusion that the whole superstition thing was just an easy way out.

When they skate out onto the ice a while later, the rainbows are everywhere. Nick has played a few pride nights last season – the Lions’ own event, and then two more on the road – and he took a look at what teams did. In some places you could have thought that there was no special event happening at all and in other places you could tell that management decided to slap rainbows on everything within reach. The Hawks clearly went with the latter.

The Cardinals are far away from home, so there aren’t too many red jerseys in attendance. A little girl behind the glass is wearing Cardinals colors and rainbow bows in her hair, but her mom and dad behind her are in blue and yellow. Her sign reads,  _Raised a Hawks fan, but tonight I cheer for Nick Rivera!_

Nick waves at her as he skates by and grabs a puck off the ice.

“Wait, Rivs, wait…”

Nick looks around and Connor bumps into him. “What?”

“Here, use these,” Connor says and holds up three pucks that have rainbow tape wrapped around them.

Nick snorts. “Seriously?”

“Come on, don’t be an ass.”

“I’m not,” Nick says and takes the pucks. “Thanks, Waldo.”

Connor gives him a look he can’t quite read and then he skates off to center ice where Shane Wilds is waiting for him with a wide grin on his face.

It’s a pretty mellow game. It’s a nice back-and-forth, but the Hawks aren’t prone to fighting and neither are the Cardinals. Okay. Maybe the Cardinals have been known to fight when provoked, but Coach Harrison isn’t happy when a guy on his team starts a fight. Nick doesn’t mind a fight when it’s not meaningless, though, and there’s a bunch of guys on the team who are happy to engage.

In a game involving the Colorado Hawks, though, you’ll rarely see a fight. They’re a bunch of Lady Byng winners.

It’s not an easy game, though.

During the second, Nick slips and for a second he thinks that they’ll have to take him off the ice on a stretcher in a few minutes. He’s skating towards the Hawks’ net, Shane Wilds right behind him, then the whistle blows for a penalty behind them. Nick tries to slow down, but his skate blade catches on something and he loses his footing. He knows he’s headed straight for the boards, but he never actually hits them.

Someone in blue and yellow catches him.

Nick looks up at the toothless grin of the Hawks’ top D-man Robbie Walters. “Thanks,” Nick mutters.

Robbie only nods, then he lets go of Nick and pats his bucket before he skates away.

“You okay?” Wilder asks as they skate back to where they’re dropping the puck.

Nick nods. “All good.”

The Cardinals eventually leave the Hawks’ arena with a 4-3 win after the third period. They’re spending the night in Denver and then they’re off to Chicago in the morning.  

As soon as they’re back at the hotel, Nick flops down on his bed with a groan.

Connor laughs as he walks past him. “This was only the first of four.”

“Ugh.”

“Why are you grumpy, you got a goal and an assist.”

“I’m not grumpy, just tired,” Nick says. “I don’t like long roadies. And the flying. And… not sleeping in my own bed.”

“These beds aren’t so bad,” Connor says and lets himself fall onto his own. Connor’s phone vibrates and he pulls a face when he looks at the text. “Aw, poor Wilder.”

“It’s nice that you and Wilder are still friends,” Nick mumbles.

“Yeah, it is. He’s a good guy…” Connor pauses and Nick waits for him to say something else, but in the end he doesn’t.

“Hey, what happened to the guy the Hawks got in exchange for you?” Nick asks.

“Blake White?”

“Yeah.”

“They put him on waivers a while ago, he’s on the farm team.”

“Oh,” Nick says.

“Thought the Cardinals were gonna do the same thing with me, to be honest.” Connor clears his throat. “Hey, Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

Nick frowns. He hates that question, because it’s usually followed by another question that he doesn’t want to answer. “Sure.”

“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way or anything, but…”

Nick glances over at Connor, who’s sat up and is looking a great deal more uncomfortable than he was ten seconds ago. “What?” Nick asks.

“You’re not, like… I mean, if someone on the team was gay, you’d be okay with it, right?” Connor asks.

“Yeah, of course,” Nick says. He does realize that this isn’t about him. It actually almost sounds like Connor might have thought that Nick  _wouldn’t_  be okay with having a gay teammate.

“It’s just when I gave you those pucks with the rainbow tape… I don’t know. So you wouldn’t mind? If one of the guys came out, you’d–”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to come out,” Nick says.

“Okay, whatever, but if someone did? Like, say someone decided to tell you. Just you. Would you be supportive?” Connor asks. He almost sounds sullen now.

“Yeah,” Nick says, maybe a little too gruffly.

“Okay, good.”

“I wasn’t trying to make fun of the tape,” Nick says. “It’s just…” He shakes his head. There was never a better time for him to come out to one of his teammates. Connor would likely be okay with it, but Nick doesn’t want to do it just to win an argument. If this even is an argument.

“It’s just  _what_?”

“Nothing,” Nick says. “I’m glad you care so much about this.”

Connor stares at him for a moment, probably trying to figure out if Nick actually means it. This is a very strange conversation for them to have. They never talk about their political beliefs or anything like that. It’s hockey and other sports and training and movies and… nothing that’s in any way controversial or could start an actual fight.

Nick is always extremely careful with his words. He’s already been through the whole  _Nick Rivera has a drug problem_  business, he doesn’t need to move on to  _Nick Rivera is a problem in the locker room_. He just wants to play hockey in peace.

“I didn’t mean to be an ass about it,” Connor says. “I just…”

“You just wanted to make sure,” Nick finishes for him.

“Yeah.”

Nick nods. “I get that.”

And maybe he’s not telling Connor the truth tonight, and maybe he won’t ever tell him, but he knows that he  _could_. To Nick, that does make a difference.

*

“You look nice,” Alex says.

Nadira nearly trips over her own feet. The Goldmans have this ridiculously awesome staircase that leads upstairs from the foyer. It’s all black marble – or maybe it’s fake marble, but Nadira highly doubts it – and it gets a little wider at the bottom, and it’s made for a dramatic entrance.

If Nadira had a big ballgown, this would be the staircase she’d walk down. In all honesty, sometimes she just wants to tie a big blanket around her waist and pretend. Just to see what it would feel like.

She’ll do it one day. When no one’s home.

Nadira is wearing a dress tonight, but it’s just a regular dress – purple and blue flowers. Nothing too fancy. They’re going out for dinner again and it seemed like a good choice. She wore a Cardinals shirt and jeans for their date at the movies last week, so it’s not like she’s setting an unrealistic standard for herself here.

She did make a bit more of an effort for their first date, but that was their  _first date_. It’s good to make an effort. It’s good to show that you care.

“Thank you,” Nadira says. She makes it to the bottom of the staircase without tripping, which instantly improves her evening. “What are you up to?”

“I’m gonna meet up with Finn and the guys at the bar later. It’s Mateo’s birthday, so…” He shrugs. “I’m guessing you’re going out with Sarah?”

“I am,” Nadira says. “Fourth date.”

“The fourth? Really?”

“Well, one time we just grabbed coffee, but I’m still counting that as a date. And we also watched the Cardinals’ game against Toronto last night. Where’s Waldo? Did he come back and just instantly leave again?”

“Pretty sure it’s Santa’s birthday,” Alex says. “They just had a ginormous cake, apparently. Nick said that Waldo was planning on stealing some of it, so keep an eye out in the kitchen later. If you’re even coming home later.”

Nadira smirks. “Maybe I won’t. I don’t know yet.” After they watched the Cardinals game last night, they had a talk. Possibly the most awkward talk Nadira has ever had in her entire life, but they know where they’re at now.

Incidentally, they’re at a point where they might spend the night at each other’s places and clothes might end up being discarded. Nadira is about as excited as she’s nervous.

Alex grins. “So things are going well?”

“Yes.”

“You’re saying yes, but you’re making a face like that’s a problem,” Alex says.

Nadira sighs. It’s really the opposite of a problem. Deep down, she already knew this was going to work out and she’s so happy, but there’s still so much nagging at her that she can’t even focus on being happy. “I’m gonna have to tell my parents.”

“Oh,” Alex says. “I didn’t know they were… having issues.”

“Well. It’s not super straightforward with my parents. Because they love me. And they didn’t kick me out of the house, and they will never say anything horrible, but they’re so awkward about it. It’s just gonna be so uncomfortable.”

Alex scrunches up his nose. “Yeah, I can imagine.”

“I talked to Sarah about it the other day and she isn’t looking forward to telling her parents either and we have considered not telling our parents at all, but… better get it over with, I guess.”

“Huh,” Alex says. “Yeah, maybe.”

It’s complicated either way. In New York, this wasn’t an issue. In New York, her parents were far away and Nadira didn’t feel like she had to tell them anything. But now that she’s here and she could run into them pretty much anywhere, she doesn’t exactly want to keep this from them, especially because they’ve actually been trying really hard to be supportive.

They  _want_  to be supportive, they just don’t know how to do it without being awkward about it, but Nadira feels like they deserve to know just because they’ve been making an effort.

At least not everything is terrible.

“The good news is that I’ve finally talked to my boss today and she said she doesn’t see an issue as long as it doesn’t have an effect on the quality of my articles. Which it won’t. And I’m looking for a new job anyway.”

“Yeah, how’s that going?” Alex asks.

“It’s not,” Nadira says. “There’s nothing. Or nothing that sounds better than my current job. And now I’m not exactly keen on moving too far away, at least until I know what Sarah wants to do after this season. But, hey… maybe it’ll just take a while.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

“Nah,” Nadira says, although she can’t help but wonder what kinds of connections Alex has. His dad coaches a team, he used to be a star player, so he probably has all sorts of contacts. “Thanks, though.”

Alex nods. “I’ll see you later. Or maybe not.”

Nadira laughs and waves at him before she heads out the door.


	67. pride, Chapter 13.5

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.5**

 

*

 **ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

This morning, Alan Harper sat down with our #YouCanPlay ambassador @ConnorWaldo ahead of our special event on Sunday!

*

Alex isn’t really used to being home on a Saturday night. He ended up switching a shift with Finn during the week, so now Finn is at the rink and Alex is home, and he knows he should be doing something with his evening off, but in the end he’ll put on pajamas and make himself a cup of tea and read a book. It’s not exactly exciting, but he doesn’t really feel like going out.

“You’re just gonna go hug your dog and go to bed at eight, aren’t you?” Finn asked before Alex left the rink.

“Yeah,” Alex said.

Finn only laughed and gently pushed him out of the office.

When Alex got home, Nadira was on her way out the door, shouting, “Don’t expect me back before lunch tomorrow.” Ten minutes later Connor came into the kitchen while Alex was making dinner, asking what he thought of his shirt. Another ten minutes later, after Connor had changed his shirt about a dozen times, he left to go out on a date with a girl he’d met in the cereal aisle at the grocery store that morning.

So now it’s just Alex. And a book. And a cup of tea.

He manages to read about ten pages, then Byron starts barking downstairs and the doorbell rings a moment later. It’s a quarter to eight. Alex isn’t expecting anyone, but Byron is still barking at the door and Alex should probably go downstairs to check what that is all about.

He does consider pretending that he’s not home, but eventually crawls back out of bed and goes downstairs.

Byron isn’t barking anymore, he’s just sitting by the door, wagging his tail, so it’s likely someone he knows. Maybe Connor just forgot his keys, although it would be pretty early for him to come home.

Alex squints at the glass and it almost looks like… “Nick?” He unlocks the door and opens it. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Nick says.

“Waldo isn’t here,” Alex says. Maybe Connor invited him over and forgot to tell Nick that he was going out on an impromptu date tonight.

“I know, I was just…” Nick shrugs. “I was just driving around and I… Do you wanna hang out for a bit?” His eyes flicker down to Alex’s pajama pants. “Were you already in bed? Shit, I’m really sorry, I’ll go home.”

“No, I was just reading, come on in,” Alex says and grabs him by his sleeve to pull him into the house.

“Is Nadi here?” Nick asks.

“Not right now, she’s out with Sarah, and as far as I know she’s not planning on coming back tonight.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s just go upstairs. My room is all the way down the hall from hers, so she won’t overhear anything if she ends up coming back.” Alex shakes his head. That somehow came out wrong. “You know, if you want to talk about anything in particular that you might not want her to hear.”

“I…” Nick shrugs off his jacket. “I don’t know. But, yeah. Thanks. I’m sorry for just dropping by like this. I don’t even–”

“Nick,” Alex says and holds his hand out for Nick’s jacket. “It’s fine.” He thinks he gets it. After he’d graduated, he always showed up at Finn’s place unannounced because he just needed to not be alone, and Finn never sent him away.

They go upstairs and Byron follows them to Alex’s room.

“He can’t come in,” Alex says.

Nick frowns. “He can’t?”

“Nope…” Alex closes the door before Byron can get any ideas.

Nick makes a face. “You’re a strict dad.”

“I know,” Alex says with a shrug. He sits down on his bed and Nick joins him with some reluctance.

“I’m sorry for just showing up here.”

“It’s fine.”

“I wasn’t sure if–”

“Nicky,” Alex says. “It’s  _fine_. Do you wanna talk about it?”

“About what?”

“About why you’re here,” Alex says. Because there’s definitely a reason why Nick came here tonight, and Alex has a couple of assumptions, but it’s not like he’s going to make Nick talk.

Nick chews on his bottom lip. “Not really. Maybe later”

“So you just wanna… hang out for a bit?”

“If that’s okay?”

“Yeah. That’s okay.”

Silence falls and Alex isn’t quite sure what to say, so they just sit on his bed and Nick picks at his fingernails, and looks around, and glances at Alex, and then eventually flops down onto the mattress with a drawn-out sigh.

Alex can’t help but laugh.

Nick turns his head to smile at him. “So…”

“So?”

“You’re coaching the kids now?”

“Yeah. I talked to Coach Harvey’s wife the other day and he won’t be coming back any time soon.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty bad. They really needed someone to help out, and they have an assistant coach, so it’s not just me, but yeah. Finn and Ashley are going to take a few extra shifts so I can coach the kids.”

Nick narrows his eyes at him. “You like coaching, don’t you?”

“It’s not terrible,” Alex says.

“Yeah. You like it.”

Alex shrugs. “Fine. Maybe I do.”

“So why are you trying so hard to hate it?” Nick asks.

“I’m not trying to  _hate_  it,” Alex grumbles. “I like it, it’s fun.”

“But?”

There he is again. Nick Rivera, all up in his business. “But…” Alex says. He isn’t sure why he’s always inclined to tell Nick about every thought he’s ever had, but telling Nick things has always seemed so easy.

Okay, maybe Alex does know why. He trusts Nick. He’s always trusted Nick. There’s a reason why Nick was the first person he ever came out to.

Nick is looking at him, quiet, patient

“When I graduated,” Alex says, “my dad tried to get me to take a coaching job. You know, for a minor league team. Something where I could move up eventually. He said I’d be on the coaching staff for the Cardinals’ farm team in no time. It was all in the name for him, you know? Because if they hired a Goldman, it would carry on the legacy or some bullshit like that.”

Nick hums. “So obviously you didn’t want that.”

“No, because I don’t need my dad to find me a job.” Alex huffs. “I wanted the rink, I’ve always loved it and there was… There’s no pressure on me there. I can do everything that’s expected of me.”

“Ah,” Nick says, his lips twitching.

“Oh, let me guess, you just saw right through me.”

“I totally did,” Nick says. “A coach needs to be on skates sometimes.”

Alex glares at him.

That’s exactly the problem, though. With the kids it doesn’t really matter that much if he’s on the bench, especially since there’s an assistant coach who can be out on the ice with the kids, but on a higher level he’d definitely have to put on skates.

“Well,” Nick says slowly, “you don’t have to skate if you don’t want to.”

Alex nods. “Yeah.”

“But?”

“Why do you keep saying  _but_?” Alex asks.

“Because I’m sensing a  _but_.”

“Fine,” Alex says. “But maybe I like coaching and maybe I actually wanna do it, but I want to get there myself. I don’t want my dad to get involved, but he’ll try to push something on me as soon as he hears that I’m coaching the kids.”

“Maybe, for starters, you should just come skating with me,” Nick says.

Alex only rolls his eyes at him.

There’s something knowing about the smile Nick gives him in return.

“I see what you’re doing,” Alex says.

“Oh, and what is that?”

“You’re making me talk about my problems so you don’t have to talk about yours.”

Nick doesn’t even reply, he just keeps smiling, shakes his head a little, and closes his eyes.

“Getting comfortable, huh?” Alex asks. “Want a blanket?”

Nick’s eyes fly open. “Uh…”

Alex chews on his bottom lip. He’s not really sure how to talk to Nick about this. It’s just that he knows how isolating it can feel when you’re not out to anyone, or when there’s only a handful of people you can turn to. Alex spent many nights sleeping in Finn’s bed, just so he wouldn’t have to go home and fall asleep on his own long, long before it developed into something more.

“I don’t mind if you stay,” Alex says eventually. He doesn’t want it to sound like  _he_  wants Nick to stay.

Maybe he does, but that’s not the point.

“You don’t,” Nick says.

“I don’t.”

Nick rolls onto his side, his eyes on Alex. “I really shouldn’t stay.”

“Why?” Alex asks. He shouldn’t ask, because he probably already knows the answer. He remembers Nick standing in the dark hallway with him, a snowstorm raging outside, and he remembers the look on Nick’s face, and he– He just  _knows_.

And he hates that he knows.

Mostly, he hates it because, in theory, he’s ready for this. He’s ready to let himself fall. He’s ready to give it a try, but Nick isn’t, so Alex  _can’t_  let himself fall. So he’d rather not know.

Nick looks him dead in the eye and says, “You know why.”

Yeah, that’s what Alex thought. “Stay anyway,” he says. Because he notices how he likes having Nick around, and how he hopes that Nick might show up at the rink in the evening and ask if he can skate for a while. He doesn’t want him to go home.

Nick rubs his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Alex doesn’t push it; he only nods and leans back against the headboard. “Do you want… I don’t know, a cup of tea or anything?”

“I’m good,” Nick says. He reaches out and taps the corner of Alex’s book that’s still lying on top of the duvet. “What are you reading?”

Alex laughs. “It’s  _Percy Jackson_.”

“Isn’t that a kids’ book?”

“Shut up,” Alex says.

“You wanna read it to me? I’ve never read it.”

Alex picks up the book. “Sure.”

*

“Hey. Nicky, wake up.”

Nick really doesn’t want to wake up. It feels like the middle of the night. He frowns, and blinks, and finds Alex’s face hovering over him. “What time’s it?”

“It’s a little after ten,” Alex says.

Okay, maybe it’s not the middle of the night. “Oh,” Nick says.

“I just thought you might wanna go home. Because I’m going to bed now.”

“Right,” Nick says. He wants to stay so badly. There’s a million reasons why he shouldn’t, but right now he can’t remember a single one of them.

Alex is watching him, not a hint of impatience on his face.  _Stay anyway_ , Alex said.

“But I can stay?” Nick asks.

“If you want to,” Alex says. “But then you’ll have to stop being, like… all over my whole bed.”

Nick sits up and immediately flops down again, this time with his head on a pillow. “I’ll stay,” he says. He’s in sweatpants, that’s basically pajamas. And he’s tired, and he doesn’t want to go home, and this is exactly where he wants to be, so he’ll stay here and he’ll stop trying to remember all the reasons why he shouldn’t.

“Okay,” Alex only says.

Nick pretty much goes right back to sleep. He barely even notices when Alex  pulls the sheets up over him turns off  the lights a few minutes later.

He does wake up sometime during the night and fumbles for his phone that he put on the nightstand earlier. He makes sure his alarm is set, because he is expected to show up for morning skate at the rink, and then rolls over again, bumping into Alex, who’s migrated to the middle of the bed. Alex grunts, but doesn’t otherwise say a word.

Nick wakes up before his alarm goes off. He’s in the middle of the bed with Alex and he can feel Alex’s breath against the back of his neck. Nick checks the time on his phone – too early to even think about getting up, but Nick is getting antsy about the fact that he isn’t in his own bed.

If Connor and Nadira got home last night, they probably saw his car, and his being here would be explained away easily enough. He could just say that they were hanging out and he ended up sleeping on the couch. Still. What if they’re home and they need to talk to Alex and they come into his room and see that Nick is very much not on the couch?

And, sure, he knows how slim the chances are that this will actually happen, but–

“Nicky.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop being twitchy.”

“Sorry,” Nick whispers.

Alex’s fingers wrap around his arm, thumb slowly rubbing against the inside of Nick’s wrist. “You okay?”

“I don’t know,” Nick says.

“What’s wrong?”

“I…” Nick sucks in a deep breath. “I don’t even know where to start.”

“Start anywhere.”

“The Cardinals are doing this Pride Night thing at the game tonight,” Nick says. He wanted to talk about this last night and Alex was the only person he could go to, but then it seemed easier not to talk about it at all. “I guess I feel bad because I’m not doing more. Because I should care, right? I  _do_  care. I just don’t want anyone to know  _why_  I care.”

“Nick, you don’t have to do  _anything_. Hockey is your job and maybe you’re gay, but that has nothing to do with you playing the game.”

“I know that,” Nick says quietly.

“I know you love saying things without actually saying anything when you do interviews, but… I don’t know, maybe don’t do that just this one time.”

“Yeah,” Nick says.

“It’s nice to hear that someone’s on your side,” Alex says.

“It is.” Nick stares at the ceiling for a moment. The sun’s starting to come up and when he turns his head he can actually see the outline of Alex. “Can I ask you something?”

“Always.”

“If you were still playing, would you consider coming out?”

“No,” Alex says almost instantly, then, a little quieter, “Maybe.”

“Really?”

“I think I’d consider it, but I’d never actually do it.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. That’s pretty much where he’s at, too. “Sometimes I just wonder… you know, if this is it. If I’m just gonna hide my entire life. Like, I’m never gonna go out on a date with a guy I actually like, and I’m never gonna hold hands with someone in public, and it seems so final, like, nothing about that is going to change.”

“I’m sorry,” Alex says.

Nick shakes his head. “Well, it is what it is.”

“Do you…”

“What?”

“Nothing, I just thought you might need a hug, but I don’t wanna scare you away.”

Nick’s breath gets stuck somewhere in his lungs. “Why would that scare me away?”

“You know why.”

Yeah, okay, he knows why. That seems to be a theme with them. Nick sighs and turns over and rests his forehead against Alex’s arm. “I need to get going,” Nick says.

“So I did scare you away, huh?”

“No, I just… I should go.”

Alex hums, shifts just a little and runs his hand up and down Nick’s arm. “Stay for one more minute.”

“Alex…” Nick says.

“Sorry,” Alex whispers and lets go of him.

“I don’t know what to do.” It’s about more than just staying or going home and Nick is sure that Alex understands that. They’ve become so close again so quickly and it seems that Alex really doesn’t mind that Nick keeps showing up at the rink and comes over and sleeps in his bed.

Everything about being around Alex has always been so easy. Even when Alex is acting all grumpy. Nick knows how to tickle a smile out of Alex even then.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Alex says.

Nick lets out a soft breath and sits up. He needs to go home, otherwise the anxiety is gonna eat a hole through him. “Thanks for letting me stay.”

“Anytime,” Alex says.

“Really?” Nick asks. “Anytime?”

“Yeah, really.”

Nick looks down at him in the low light. He so, so desperately wants to stay and just let himself have this, but he’d just be torturing himself if he stayed. He’d just keep thinking about what would happen if Nadira or Connor got home, if they realized that he’s here, what they’d think, what they’d say.

So it’s time to go home. He has to figure this all out somehow.


	68. pride, Chapter 13.6

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.6**

 

*

_ConnecticutCardinals Retweeted_

––––––––––––––––––––––––

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

Per Coach Harrison: Tyler Yang is out indefinitely with a lower body injury, doesn’t have any other updates at the moment

––––––––––––––––––––––––

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Nick Rivera will wear the A in Tyler Yang’s absence. He was nominated by Yang himself and the team voted to support his decision.

*

“Oh, hey,” Ashley says as she walks into the rink on Sunday afternoon and finds Alex in the front office. On Sundays, she’s usually greeted by Finn when she comes in.

“Hey,” Alex says.

“Where’s Finn?”

“It’s so nice to see you, too.”

Ashley purses her lips at him. Admittedly, she’s been a little grumpy around Alex lately. It’s not entirely about Alex, it’s also that Ashley is currently unsure about 99% of the things that are happening in his life. The 1% that’s working out is Jamie, as always. “How are you today?” Ashley asks, because she does have some motivation to be nice left in her.

“Pretty good,” Alex says. “Finn is at the game with Andy, and Nadi and Sarah.”

“Ah, right.” Ashley would have loved to go with them, but it’s Sunday afternoon and she’ll be teaching skaters for three hours. She can’t afford to cancel all those lessons if she doesn’t have a real good reason.

She steps aside for one of her figure skating kids who apparently arrived early.

“See you on the ice,” Ashley says to her before she walks off, then she turns back to Alex. “I should go.”

Alex frowns at her. “Everything okay?”

“Why?” Ashley asks and it comes out somewhat snappy. Well.  _Good_.

“Uh…”

“Are we friends, Alex?” Ashley asks.

“Are we…. friends? Of course we’re friends.”

“Okay. Great. So, friends talk to each other, yeah?”

Alex blinks at her, his eyes flitting up and down the hall, like he’s checking if someone’s eavesdropping. He clears his throat. “Yeah.”

Ashley really doesn’t want to make a scene or anything, so she smiles and says, “Well, then, ask me why.”

“Wait, what?”

“Ask me why I want to go part-time,” Ashley says.

“Oh,” Alex says. “Why… do you wanna go part-time?”

Ashley has to hand it to him, at least he does what she wants him to do and doesn’t question it. “Because I want to get a college degree,” Ashley says. “I’m gonna do it online or at the community college or… whatever. And I need some extra time for that.”

“That’s great, Ash,” Alex says and grins at her.

“Right?”

“What are you gonna do, exactly?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Ashley nods. “I will. Always do.”

“Ash, you know you can just tell me stuff, right?” Alex says. “I mean, I totally wanna hear what’s going on in your life.”

“Okay, great, but that’s really not the point.”

“It’s not?”

“No. The point is that you’re so hellbent on making sure that everyone leaves you alone… which is fine, by the way, if you don’t want to share anything ever with your friends, then that’s your business,” Ashley says, “but I need you to not leave me alone. I need you to show me that you want to be my friend and that you’re interested in what I have to say.”

“I… Okay.” Alex stares at her for a long moment, then he says, “I’m sorry.”

Ashley only nods and then stalks off. She has a skating lesson to teach.

She feels better now.  _A lot_  better.

*

“Did you see that Nick’s gonna wear the A?” Sarah asks.

“Please,” Nadira replies. “ _Please_.”

“My bad. Of course you’ve seen it. You probably saw it the second they tweeted it.”

“Not to brag, but I did.”

Sarah laughs. She should have known.

She looks around the arena – the seats to their right are still empty because Finn and Andy couldn’t decide if they wanted to buy shirts or not, but the seats around them are still filling up quickly. Sarah knows that Steph and Anna are here too, because Steph’s brother Mike got them tickets, but they’re pretty much all the way across the arena.

A few people are here with rainbow flags and some are wearing the You Can Play wristbands that they were handed when they came into the arena.

Finn and Andy eventually return to them, both of them now wearing a Cardinals shirt, the logo in rainbow colors.

“Nice shirts,” Nadira says.

“Yeah, the shirts are cool, but you know what’s even cooler?” Finn asks.

“Don’t answer,” Andy says.

“Stop ruining my fun,” Finn says and gives him a nudge. “It’s my puck, ladies, my puck is cooler than the shirts.”

Andy sighs. “You’ll never shut up about that puck, will you?”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Yeah.”

“Aw,” Finn says and pulls his puck out of his pocket. Connor threw it to him during warm-ups and it has some pride tape on the side. “Here, you can hold it.”

Andy laughs. “Thanks, you’re too kind.”

“We’ll have shared custody of the puck, okay?”

Andy doesn’t reply, he just smiles down at the puck, his cheeks flushed, and Sarah wonders if she looks like that when Nadira does something cute.

“Oh, look,” Nadira says and starts hitting Sarah’s arm, pointing up at the jumbotron.

“Can you believe that our seats are so good that I actually have to tilt my head back to see that bigass screen?” Finn says. “Unbelievable.”

Up on the jumbotron, Alan Harper welcomes everyone to the Cardinals’ Pride Night they’re holding in support of You Can Play. “I’m here with our ambassador Connor Walden,” Alan Harper says up on the screen. “Connor, what does this special night mean to you?”

It’s clearly an interview they shot earlier, because Connor isn’t wearing his gear, just a Cardinals hoodie. It has the rainbow Cardinals logo on it, but Connor has also added his number to it with some pride tape.

“It’s special to me, to us as a team, because we want to show people that we care,” Connor says. “We want everyone to feel welcome at our events.”

The video cuts to the You Can Play segment that the Cardinals published earlier this month and afterwards fades to Metallica, which is when the players start coming out onto the ice.

Sarah and Nadira watched some of the players’ game day interviews earlier. A lot of them talked about tonight and Sarah liked what they had to say. She watched Nick’s interview, too, and it was very much free of bullshit. What he said seemed surprisingly genuine.

“I’m glad that they’ve made this a league-wide initiative,” Nick said. “It’s important, and it’s as much for our fans as it is for current and future players.”

“Would you be supportive of a gay teammate?” one of the reporters asked.

“Absolutely,” Nick said.

“Don’t you think it might be a distraction if–”

“I don’t see why it would be a distraction. Have you ever asked anyone if one of the guys’ girlfriends might be a distraction?”

The Cards Insider reporter who was in the scrum as well quickly changed the topic after that.

Yoshi’s interview questions were similar, although not quite as uncalled for as the one that Nick got asked. Connor’s interview was by far the longest, and he also did an extra one with Alan Harper that the Cardinals posted on Twitter earlier. She’s glad that Connor is doing this, but she knows that none of this will come up again until a year from now. It’ll be back to business as usual soon enough. Tomorrow, probably.

It was still nice of the boys to invite them here tonight.

It’s a fast-paced game and Yoshi gets checked into the glass pretty much right in front of them during the second period. Santa is mad, tries to fight someone, yells at one of the refs, and ends up in the penalty box. Nick, today with an A on his jersey, tries to argue Santa’s case, but the refs don’t want to hear it.

The Cardinals still leave the ice with a win, one goal from the Roy line, two goals from the Rivera line. They’re missing their best D-man, but it’s barely even noticeable with how much everyone else steps up.

Nick gets first star and Nadira hollers at him, although Sarah is pretty sure that he isn’t able to hear her.

“It’s what he deserves,” Finn says.

“I told Waldo to win it for the gays,” Nadira says and clutches her chest. “They did it for us.”

They’re all laughing as they leave. They meet Steph and Anna out by the main entrance and they head to a bar down the street from the arena. The boys don’t join them; they’re going straight to the airport for a single away game in Florida tomorrow.

On the drive home, Finn and Andy are giggling a lot in the backseat and back at Finn’s house, Andy actually has to help Finn out of the car. He thanks Sarah profusely for giving them a ride, Finn blows them a kiss, and then Andy picks him up to carry him to the house, because he’s not in the mood to wait for Finn to remember how to walk. Finn grins at them over Andy’s shoulder and waves.

“He’s going to be so grumpy at work tomorrow,” Sarah says with a sigh.

“Ugh, work.”

“When do you have to be at the office?”

“I have an interview scheduled at ten, so I’ll just go straight there,” Nadira says. She smiles and reaches over to pat Sarah’s thigh. “Wanna come to my place?”

“Sure, why not. Is Alex okay with that?”

“I mean, probably.”

“You haven’t talked to him about it?”

Nadira shrugs. “Alex is chill.”

“So it won’t be a problem if he comes across me in the kitchen tomorrow morning?”

“Nope,” Nadira says.

“Okay,” Sarah says. She hasn’t stayed at Nadira’s place since they started dating. She dropped by a couple of times, but she never spent the night.

It’s all first times now. But the first times will get more and more rare and at some point they’ll have done it all, or at least all that’s important, all the everyday things. And then they’ll be in a proper relationship and that’s where they’ll really find out if this is going to work. When all the newness has worn off and it’s just them doing the same things day after day.

Sarah wants to do the same things with Nadira day after day. She wants to settle into that easy rhythm of knowing each other, because all these first times make her nervous.

It helps that she knows that Nadira is still nervous, too. Then she’ll talk so fast that Sarah can’t get a word in and she’ll change the topic three times, sometimes even in the same sentence. Sarah finds it endearing. When she gets nervous, she gets very quiet, so Nadira is making up for that.

Sarah pulls out of Finn’s street and heads north.

They drive past the Mills, where her parents live. And Nick, a few streets down.

“Is it okay if I tell my parents soon?” Sarah asks. And by  _soon_  she means sometime during the next three months. She has no idea how quickly she’ll talk herself into actually doing it. “You know, about us?”

“Oh, uh, sure. Do you want me to… be there?”

Sarah grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “Yes, although… maybe not.”

“Okay?”

“See, the thing is, I just don’t know how that’s going to go,” Sarah says, “and I don’t want you in the middle of it if it gets nasty. But I also don’t want you to feel like I don’t want you there.”

“Sarah,” Nadira says softly, “just do whatever is the easiest thing for  _you_ , okay? Don’t even worry about me.”

Sarah nods. “Coming out to them was pretty much the scariest thing for me ever.”

“Was it bad?”

“Not in a screaming and crying and arguing kind of way,” Sarah says. “My mom just let me know at every turn that she thought it was just a phase and that she didn’t want me to go down  _that path_. I was in college and I actually thought that telling them wouldn’t be a big deal.” Sarah laughs. She genuinely thought her parents were open-minded people, but in the end it was only her dad who didn’t act all offended. “My mom was beyond delighted when I started dating Nate.”

Nadira hums. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to tell them–”

“But I do,” Sarah says. “I want them to know that I’m happy.”

“Aww,” Nadira says and reaches over to squeeze Sarah’s arm. “Sorry. Drive. But that was cute.”

Sarah quickly glances over at her and smiles. “Look at us.”

“Right? So cute.”

*

Nick skates into Connor with a laugh, but Connor catches him before he can get away. “Gotcha,” Connor says. “I’m putting you in the sin bin.”

“Aw, come on, that was hardly an illegal check,” Nick says, snorting when Connor starts pushing him over to the penalty boxes.

“I know,” Connor says, “that was a  _baby_  check. But it still has time to grow up.”

Nick tries to wiggle away from him, but Connor has a pretty good hold on him. He doesn’t really expect Nick to stop and go slack, so it takes him by surprise. “What…”

He follows Nick’s gaze and finds Alex over by the bench. He’s wearing a hat and his coat, probably ready to head home.

It’s Tuesday afternoon, so Alex isn’t working late. Nick booked a session at the rink a while ago and asked Connor if he wanted to tag along. He usually isn’t one to go skating on his days off, but he’s going out on a date tonight and he spent way too much time thinking about it this morning, so he felt like he needed a distraction.

He doesn’t like dating. It’s like stumbling from one awkward moment into another, but he’s really trying. He’s trying to make a life here, even though he has no idea if he’ll come back to play for the Cardinals next season. He’ll be a free agent in July. And then fuck knows what will happen.

Unless the Cardinals want him to stay.

The point is, he doesn’t know. The trade deadline was yesterday, but he’s still here. With Ty out of the lineup, the Cardinals weren’t going to get rid of another D-man. In fact, they traded for another D-man – a pick and Rogers for the Seals’ Raphael Whittle.

Connor doesn’t know him too well, but Shane is friends with him because they grew up maybe ten miles away from each other and train together in the summer. Connor was also talking to Nick about him earlier. He came across him in the Western Conference a couple of times a season when he was still with the Lions.

“I’m not worried about him fitting in,” Nick said. “He’s… loud. Talks a lot of shit, but nothing offensive, really.”

Connor tries to remember their games against the Seals this season, but nothing really sticks out.

When Alex shows up, Connor lets go of Nick and they both skate over to the bench to say hello. They still have four minutes left on the clock, but they’re pretty much done; they were just fooling around.

“Hey,” Connor says.

“How’s it going?” Alex says, his eyes flitting from Connor to Nick and back again.

“We’re wrapping up,” Connor says. “Are you heading home?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to ask if you want a ride home.”

“Oh, actually, yeah, that’s not a bad idea. Then Nick doesn’t have to drop me off.”

Nick shrugs. “I thought we could go somewhere for dinner? Or I can make dinner at my place.” He glances at Alex. “Like, both of you can come. If you want.”

“I sort of already have plans,” Connor says. He can feel his cheeks go red.

Alex smirks. He already knows.

“Really?” Nick says. “What kind of plans?”

“A date.”

“I thought it didn’t really work out with the girl from the grocery store?” Nick asks.

“This will surprise you, Nicky,” Alex says, “but there’s more than one single woman on this planet.”

Nick rolls his eyes.

“Anyway,” Connor says, “I guess you and Alex are on your own for dinner.”

“Oh,” Nick says. “Are you…” He turns to Alex. “You wanna have dinner at my place?”

Alex opens his mouth, but he doesn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes on Nick. “I guess?”

“Okay,” Nick says. “You wanna come over in, like, an hour?”

Alex nods.

And, honestly, Connor isn’t one to pry and stick his nose in other people’s personal business, but Alex is definitely looking at Nick in  _some_  kind of way. But that doesn’t concern him. It really doesn’t. If Alex wants to talk about it, he knows where to find Connor.

“Waldo, I’ll do the ice while you guys get changed and I’ll wait for you upstairs, okay?”

“Sure, that’s fine. Thanks, Alex.”

Alex wanders off and Nick turns to Connor to give him a pat on the back. “A date, huh? You didn’t even mention that.”

“It’s not like  _you_  ever mention your dates,” Connor says.

Nick makes a face at him and shuffles backwards. “Hey, I’ll race you around the rink before we go,” he says and darts off.

Connor knows that he has no chance of catching him, but he starts chasing him anyway. The fun isn’t always in winning anyway.


	69. pride, Chapter 13.7

**pride**

 

**Chapter 13.7**

 

*

_Cannot retrieve Tweets at this time. Please try again later._

*

February seems even shorter than usual this year. Once the trade deadline has passed, March comes suddenly, but not unexpectedly, and once it’s March, the end of the regular season is basically in sight. The Cardinals are comfortable in the second playoff spot in their Division, but it’s not theirs just yet.

They have some hard weeks ahead of them. Cooper has a concussion and they’re dealing with it, but with Ty still injured, things aren’t exactly going their way. Whitty has been a great addition for them, but he doesn’t replace Ty. If they’re lucky, he’ll be back in time for their first playoff game, but at this point they don’t have a timeline yet. They’ve been told in confidence that it’ll likely be over six weeks.

Nick has been working hard, has been making sure that he’ll do his part. He’s at the Goldmans’ rink now, still skating, chasing a puck down the ice. It’s almost time to go home. Actually, it was time to go home about an hour ago, but he loves coming to the rink in the evening, just skating for the hell of it, enjoying the atmosphere of an empty rink at night. It’s quiet and peaceful and Nick doesn’t want to go home.

Alex is hovering by the bench, waiting patiently. He told Nick to stay as long as he’d like and he certainly meant it. Alex still hasn’t told him to get off the ice. He came down the tunnel and sat down on the bench a while ago, and he’s been following Nick with his eyes ever since. Sometimes, when Nick messes up a shot and it goes wide of the net, he’ll look at Alex, and Alex will look like he’s trying very hard not to smirk.

Nick knows that he can’t stay much longer, though. They have a game tomorrow and they’re leaving for Philly right after. He needs to rest.

Idly, Nick fishes a puck out of the net and lobs it across the ice, where it goes right into the other net. Over on the bench, Alex is smiling softly. Nick skates over slowly to tell Alex that he knows that it’s time to go, that he’ll leave soon, but when he gets there Alex still has that smile on his face and Nick leans his stick against the boards by the bench, pulls off his gloves, and doesn’t say anything at all.

Alex walks over and sits on the boards right where Nick is standing, one foot propped up on the bench. “Hey,” he says. “If that isn’t the Cardinals’ new alternate captain.”

Nick looks down at his skates. “Yeah. Not really sure why they picked me, but–”

“Oh, shut it,” Alex says gruffly.

“I’ve only been here for a couple of months.”

“And yet you changed the entire team,” Alex says. “Yoshi’s line has always been good, they’ve always delivered, but your line is the one that’s taking the Cardinals to playoffs this season.”

Nick shrugs. His cheeks feel hot.

“That’s why they picked you,” Alex goes on. “Because you deserve it. It’s not always about how long you’ve been on the team, sometimes it’s about the impact you’ve made.”

“I suppose,” Nick says. He’s slightly embarrassed that they’re even having this conversation. “Anyway, I’ll go in a bit, so you don’t have to wait much longer.”

“I told you… take your time.”

“It’s almost midnight,” Nick says. “You closed two hours ago.”

Alex glances up at the clock and shrugs. “I’m starting late tomorrow and it’s not like I have anywhere to be.”

Nick reaches out to give Alex’s arm a nudge. “You wanna skate with me?” He’s lost count of how many times he’s asked. He already knows that Alex will turn him down, only these days, he usually turns him down with a smile.

“Not today,” Alex says.

Nick nods. “Okay.”

“But…” Alex takes a deep breath and smooths his hand along the top of the boards. “Nicky?”

“Hm?”

“Don’t stop asking me.”

“I won’t.” That’s a promise Nick can keep. He’ll keep asking if that’s what Alex needs him to do. Alex has always been very much capable of saying what he wants and needs. If he’s in the mood, that is.

“Okay,” Alex says. He doesn’t move, his eyes still on Nick.

“I should go home,” Nick says. He’s so full of things he should and shouldn’t do these days, and most of the time he wants the exact opposite.

Alex’s smile is still soft when he says, “Seriously, don’t worry about it.”

That’s not really what Nick meant. He meant,  _I should go home before I do something I shouldn’t do_.

Nick already feels himself getting caught up in Alex’s smile, in this moment. In an empty rink, under the glaring lights.

They’ve been here before. Alex has looked at him like this before. Nick has felt like this before. He’s felt like everything will instantly fall into place if only he finds the courage to reach out.

There have been so many moments like this one over the last couple of weeks when he went over to Alex’s, when they had dinner at his place together, when Nick was here at the rink. It’s those looks that linger, that should be uncomfortable but aren’t. More and more, it felt like they were both holding their breath, waiting, wondering if they’ll find their way back to each other.

Alex doesn’t move when Nick shuffles a little closer. “Nick…”

“Yeah?”

Alex doesn’t reply, he just gives Nick a stern look. They really have been here before and it screwed up everything. Well.  _Nick_  screwed up everything.

That won’t happen this time. “I’m not sixteen anymore,” Nick says. He’s thought about this. He thought about it on the plane, and before he fell asleep last night, and last week, when Alex was at his place for dinner and feel asleep on the couch with Emily curled up on his chest.

This is nothing but calculated. He trusts Alex with his life and if he does this, he’s all in.

“You sure?” Alex asks.

He’s not asking him if he’s sure that he’s not sixteen anymore. They both know that he isn’t. Nick won’t bail on Alex again. He knows what he did wrong back then and he won’t let it happen again. What Alex is asking him is if he’s sure he really wants this.

It’s a good question. An important one. This is going to change everything for both of them, and it sure as hell won’t make anything easier.

“I’m sure,” Nick says.

Alex nods, almost like he was expecting as much, and leans in slowly until his nose bumps against Nick’s. They’re both holding their breath for a moment, waiting for the other one to pull away, to back out and decide that this is a bad idea, but neither of them does.

Eyes closed, Nick leans in and kisses Alex, and it’s exactly what that kiss all those years ago could have been if Nick hadn’t panicked and run away. It’s slow, and it’s gentle, and it’s careful.

Alex’s fingers are in Nick’s hair all of a sudden and Nick can’t help but sigh into the kiss. It’s a little awkward because Alex is sitting on the boards and Nick is holding his gloves – actually, Nick is clutching his gloves like they’re the only thing still connecting him to this world, reminding him that this is real and not another one of those dreams. Alex eventually pulls away an inch, only to lean back in to give Nick another kiss.

“Well,” Alex says, his voice low.

Nick drops his gloves so he can catch Alex by his shirt to make sure he won’t go anywhere. Not that Alex is in danger of going anywhere. “Well,” Nick echoes. As much as he’s thought about this and as certain as he is that he can handle this, he’s not quite sure what their next step is. “What now?”

“Now,” Alex says, “you’re going to go home and you’re going to play that game tomorrow, and then you’ll go on the road, and maybe you’ll have time to think about what you want, and I guess I’ll see you on Sunday when you get home and we’ll talk.”

That almost sounds too easy. A lot easier than last time, in any case. “Okay?” Nick says. “Really?”

“Well, whatever’s going to happen now… we won’t figure it out tonight. We both need some time to think.” Alex reaches up to run his fingers along Nick’s cheekbone. “I think you might need some more time to think than I do.”

“Can I…” Nick shakes his head. “Never mind. I’ll go home now.”

“Can you what?” Alex asks.

“I just thought I could call you. You know, while I’m on the road. If you want me to call you.”

“Call me whenever you want,” Alex says.

Nick smiles leans in for another kiss. He could stand here and kiss Alex for another two hours without a care in the world, but he does have to do his job tomorrow and he’s kept Alex at the rink long enough. One more kiss. And one more. Then he picks up his gloves. “All right.”

“All right,” Alex echoes and reaches out to give Nick’s arm a gentle pat. “Wait for me upstairs?”

Nick nods. “I will.”

*

Alex doesn’t drive straight home. He takes the long way home, through his favorite neighborhood in town, the one with the houses he loved so much as a kid. He slows down a little when his favorite one comes up. When Alex was a kid, he went down this street so much on his way home from playing street hockey that it’s still strangely comforting to him, even though he barely ever takes the long way home from the rink anymore. 

As he drives, his thoughts are all over the place, and once he’s back in his garage, he stays in the car for a couple of minutes. He wants to check his phone to see if Nick has sent him a text. It’s become a bit of a habit over the last two or three weeks. Since the snowstorm. That’s when everything changed.

He still can’t really believe that he actually just kissed Nick. The world didn’t end. It felt easy, exactly the way it should feel. When Alex met Nick up by the front office, Alex reached out to him instinctively, pulled him closer, and just held him for a moment, because he knew that it wasn’t as easy for Nick as it was for him.

This is going to go one of two ways; Alex already knows that. Either Nick will decide that it’s too great of a risk and they’ll never speak about what happened ever again, or Nick will decide that he wants to make something out of this. Whatever it can be.

And maybe it can’t be much, and maybe it can only be the two of them, with no one else ever knowing, but Alex would be okay with that. This isn’t up to him, though. He made his choice when he decided to kiss Nick back.

It’s different this time. Alex doesn’t have the weight of his dad’s legacy on his shoulders anymore, he doesn’t need to be more than he is, he doesn’t have anything to prove to anyone. He can just be Alex, who works at the rink, and coaches the peewee team, and goes home and kisses his boyfriend. If that is what Nick wants to be.

Alex lets out a slow breath and shakes his head. Now is not a good time for him to get ahead of himself.

“Okay, buddy,” Alex says to Byron. “Let’s head inside.”

Byron isn’t happy when Alex makes him get out of the car, but he’ll live.

The night air pricks at his skin as he walks up to the front door. The house is dark and quiet. He doesn’t even know if anyone’s home or if it’s just him. As much as Connor and Nadira come and go, it’s still nice to know that they’ll come back and that he’ll come across them in the kitchen eventually, and they’ll talk about what’s going on in their lives. Sometimes they’ll have dinner together when they all happen to be home. The other day Sarah joined them, and last weekend Ashley and Jamie came over to watch a Cardinals game on TV.

Alex glances at the abstract painting his mom put in the foyer a few years ago on his way to the stairs. He hates it and he hates that he has to look at it every time he walks into the house. He almost wants to ask her if he can take it down. He knows that it was expensive, so he’s not touching it unless she agrees to it.

He rummages around the house for a bit, then he makes sure Byron is all set for the night and trudges up the stairs.

It’s one in the morning when he crawls into bed.

Alex doesn’t set an alarm on his phone tonight, because he doesn’t have to be up early, but before he puts it back down on the nightstand, he opens up his contacts without even thinking much about it. He wants to call his mom. He wants to tell her that something good happened to him today, but he can’t.

Or maybe he can.

It’s not too late in Seattle. He wonders what she’s up to tonight. Maybe she’s at a fundraiser or maybe she’s at the arena with Alex’s dad, watching the Sailors play, or maybe she’s out having dinner with an old friend. His mom has a lot of old friends.

He doesn’t usually tell his mom stuff and he isn’t exactly sure why he suddenly wants to talk to her, but he’s already hit  _call_  before he has much of a chance to figure himself out.

She probably won’t answer anyway.

But then she does, after the second ring. “Alex, honey? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Alex says. Right, it’s one in the morning. He doesn’t usually call this late. Hell, he doesn’t usually call  _at all_. “I just wanted to talk to you. Do you have a few minutes?”

“You… did? Are you sure everything’s fine?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “I just… Mom?”

“Yes?”

“I need to tell you something and I need you to promise me that you’ll be okay with it.”

There’s a pause, then she says, “What is it?”

“Promise,” Alex says. He can hear her take a deep breath at the other end of the line. Granted, this isn’t the kind of phone call they normally have, where his mom asks questions and he avoids answering them.

“I promise,” she says.

“Good,” Alex says, and then, before he can lose track of what he called her for to begin with, he quickly adds, “I wanted to tell you that I’m gay. I thought… you should know that.”

He can’t even describe what it feels like. Those seconds of sheer relief because he finally told her, followed by that extreme dread because what if she  _isn’t_  okay with it? He’s had this conversation a million times in his head and he can never decide how it ends.

“Alex?” she finally says. “I love you a lot.”

Alex lies down, eyes on the ceiling. “Okay,” he says. So this is how it ends. Of course she still loves him. Of course. Because that’s the kind of person his mom is. He knew it, but he’s still relieved.

A long moment of silence stretches out between them, then his mom clears her throat. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Alex asks.

“For making you feel like you couldn’t tell me for twenty-six years.”

“To be fair, I haven’t exactly known for twenty-six years,” Alex says. “But… it wasn’t about you, really. It just felt like too much on top of everything else, I guess.”

“We pushed you way too hard, didn’t we?” his mom says. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Mom, it’s okay. I’m okay. That’s literally why I’m calling. Everything’s okay.”

When was the last time he told his mom he was okay and meant it? He honestly can’t even remember. He just needed her to hear this. That’s all. This was for him, not for her.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” his mom says.

“Are you crying? Please tell me that you’re not crying.”

“Oh, no, sweetie, I’m just cutting this really large onion that I just found in the kitchen…”

“Mom.”

There’s a short pause, then she says, “Thanks for calling, Alex.”

“Give me some time to figure out how to tell Dad, okay?” Alex says. He’d rather not tell his dad at all, but he’ll do it one of these days. He wants that peace that it’ll give him one way or another.

“Of course.”

“I’ll probably send him a carrier pigeon.”

“Alexander.”

He laughs. “Sorry. I’ll go to bed now. After googling how to get my hands on a carrier pigeon.”

She huffs at him.

“Good night, Mom.”

“Good night,” she says. “And don’t worry about telling your dad, okay? I’m always on your side and he will be, too.”

Yeah. Alex will believe that when it actually happens.


	70. secrets, Chapter 14.1

**secrets**

 

**Chapter 14.1**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

It’s podcast day! @charliekim, @jonnytalks, @EvanWilkesCTSN and I had a lot to say about the swiftly approaching end of the regular season.

*

“What time is it?”

“Do we care?” Sarah asks.

“We’re recording the podcast at ten,” Nadira says and sits up to glance at the clock. It’s nine. She needs to be out of the house in 45 minutes. Which means she can go back to kissing Sarah for a few more minutes before she gets out of bed.

“Ohh,” Sarah says. “Do you want me to make you breakfast?”

Nadira is honestly so lucky to have Sarah. Because Sarah knows how to make breakfast, although they’re at Nadira’s this morning, and Alex is probably already awake and in the kitchen, making pancakes or waffles or eggs, or maybe all of the above, because he’s the best roommate ever.

“Not yet,” Nadira mumbles and leans back down to kiss Sarah.

Sarah’s hands come up to pull Nadira down against her and the chances of Nadira making it out of this bed in the next five minutes shrink dramatically.

“Wanna hop in the shower with me?” Nadira asks. She knows how to trick herself. If she can’t make out with Sarah in her bed anymore, she’ll just have to make out with her somewhere else.

“I’m sure that would be extremely efficient,” Sarah says.

Nadira kisses the corner of Sarah’s mouth, then her jaw, and works her way down her neck. “Certainly.”

They make it out of bed eventually, but they’re definitely short on time once they’re both dressed and down in the kitchen. Alex is nowhere in sight. They should get breakfast, but as they wait for the coffee, Nadira starts kissing Sarah again, and actual food suddenly seems less important.

Nadira sneaks a glance at the clock over the door between kisses. She has to leave in nine minutes. And she’d rather kiss Sarah for nine minutes and not try to cook breakfast for nine minutes, because that’s impossible anyway.

Alex could probably put something together and it’d take him thirty seconds and Nadira would end up wondering what kind of black magic she just witnessed, but Alex clearly hasn’t set foot in the kitchen this morning. Nadira is pretty sure that he has been up to let Byron out, because Byron isn’t bugging them right now, but he must have gone back to bed. He’s not going to the rink until noon on Sundays.

They stop kissing to get their coffees ready. Nadira grabs reusable cups for both of them, almost hoping that Sarah will forget to return hers. Nadira buys one whenever she finds a cute one and she knows that she doesn’t need half a dozen of them, but buying them brings her joy in times of extreme Brad-ness. Sarah thanks her and they go back to kissing when their coffee is ready to go.

When they have five minutes left, Sarah pulls away and says, “I’m gonna try to set up dinner plans with my parents on Friday evening.”

Sarah seems nervous and Nadira would love to help her somehow, but she also gets why Sarah doesn’t want her there. Okay, maybe she doesn’t exactly get it, because if it was her who was afraid of telling her parents, she’d want the moral support, but she doesn’t have to get it. She just has to support Sarah in whichever way she wants to be supported. Which is… not easy.

“Maybe I should have dinner with my parents on Friday evening, too,” Nadira says. “They’ll want to meet you, though, so be prepared.”

Sarah laughs.

“My mom will cook way too much food and she’ll make us eat all of it. And they’ll ask inappropriate questions and they’ll be really awkward. It’ll be terrible,” Nadira goes on. “Just so you know what you’re in for.”

“I think I’m ready for that,” Sarah says and leans down to kiss her again.

“Hello, fellow gays.”

Nadira detaches herself from Sarah to look around and finds Finn shuffling into the kitchen. He apparently slept in the clothes he’s wearing and his hair is falling loosely down to his shoulders, curling at the tips.

“Hey,” Nadira says. “I didn’t know you were here.”

“Yeah, I didn’t know I was here either,” Finn says, reaches into a cupboard and somehow manages to instantly locate the biggest mug Alex owns. “I think I was drunk. No, I’m  _sure_  I was drunk.”

He takes a look at the clock and sighs at his empty mug. “Okay, I gotta go. If you see Alex, tell him thanks for letting me sleep on the couch.”

“Sure,” Nadira says. She grabs another travel mug and pours some coffee for Finn. “Here, take this.”

“Wow, I think I actually love you,” Finn says and sniffs at the coffee. “Like, almost as much as I love this coffee.” He waves at them and shuffles out of the kitchen. The front door falls shut a moment later.

Sarah giggles. “Looks like the boys had a good time last night.”

Nadira laughs and grabs her pop tarts. She offers one to Sarah, but Sarah waves her off and tells her that she’ll eat breakfast at home. She came by after her away game in Boston yesterday and she has the day off today. Nadira will likely head to her place once she’s done with the podcast.

As they head out, both with their travel mugs in hand, Alex comes down the stairs, still in pajamas, Byron trailing after him, tail wagging.

“Good morning,” Nadira says.

“Hey,” Alex says, his voice rough. “Heading out?”

“Yep, I’ll see you later. Maybe. I’ll swing by after the podcast, but…”

“Yeah, uh, I’m going to the rink later,” Alex says, “and I… I sort of have plans for later, so… don’t worry if I’m not around tonight. Or… in the morning.”

Nadira really wants to ask. She wants to ask so much. She’ll get close to exploding if she doesn’t ask. But this is Alex. And Alex will glare if she asks. So she only says, “Okay, have fun.” She can still ask at a later point and put up with the glaring if her curiosity grows to the size of, like… Texas.

Alex nods and makes his way to the kitchen.

Sarah shoots Nadira a meaningful look, but neither of them actually says anything until they’re out the door.

“I mean, there’s totally a chance that he’s just hanging out with friends,” Nadira says lowly, “but… does Alex have a secret girlfriend?”

“Is it really a secret if he’s telling us about her?”

“Well, he didn’t actually  _tell_  us.”

“Mysterious,” Sarah says. “Maybe it’s their first date or something.”

“Ohhh.”

Sarah winks at her. “Keep an eye and an ear out, I wanna know what’s going on.”

Nadira nods. Well, she lives in the same house as Alex. If he really is seeing someone, Nadira will meet them eventually.

*

Alex leaves the rink when Nick sends him a text to tell him that he’s on his way home. It’s almost nine and as far as Alex knows, Nick was expecting to be home a lot earlier. They had a matinee game in Brooklyn earlier today, so it shouldn’t have taken them five hours to get home.

“Why the fuck are you still here,” Finn asks as Alex makes for the door. He’s in the front office, drinking hot chocolate.

“Paperwork,” Alex says.

“Right,” Finn says. “Is your dad visiting again?”

“Nope, he only drops by once a season.”

Finn narrows his eyes at him. “Huh, well… I’ll see you on Tuesday.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and waves at Finn before he leaves. He drops Byron off at home and is somewhat relieved when he finds that Connor isn’t home yet. Alex leaves a note, just in case –  _Out with a friend, might get late_. _Connor, there’s leftover Thai food in the fridge! –_  then he heads over to Nick’s place.

Alex is pretty sure that he passes Nick on the way there, because Nick still has to drop off Connor at Alex’s. This is already way too complicated for Alex’s liking, but he also gets what’s at stake for Nick. He knew that before he kissed him at the rink, so he doesn’t get to complain.

He waits in his car in Nick’s driveway until Nick arrives.

Nick stops next to him and smiles as he waits for the garage door to open. Alex gets out of his own car and walks into the garage when Nick waves him inside. He approaches slowly, so slowly that the garage door is almost fully closed again when he’s made it over to Nick.

“I’m sorry,” Nick says. “I wasn’t supposed to get home this late.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex mumbles and reaches out to gently tilt up Nick’s face so he can have a look at the cut on his jaw. “Ouch.”

“It’s not so bad.”

Alex hums. He didn’t see the entire game earlier, he just watched the highlights between periods. Nick got high-sticked, but then scored on the power play, and then scored again, about a minute after the power play was over, so despite the injury, Nick had a pretty successful day. “Are you mad that you didn’t get a third one?” Alex asks.

“Not really,” Nick says.

“Hm, you have too many two-goal games to be mad about that sort of thing.”

Nick laughs.

Alex is well aware that he’s still touching Nick’s jaw, but Nick doesn’t seem to mind. He’s very still and he looks tired and his smile is barely there, but it is there.

His smile getting just a little brighter, Nick leans back against his car and pulls at Alex’s jacket. Alex goes easily, almost like some part of him was waiting for exactly that to happen, and leans down to give Nick a gentle kiss.

Nick gives him a kiss back and says, “Let’s go inside, okay?”

Alex nods and follows him into the house. Emily is waiting for Nick behind the door and he drops his bag and picks her up to cradle her against his chest.

“I missed you,” he mumbles, nuzzles the top of her head and sets her down again.

She eyes Alex with suspicion but doesn’t run away when Alex kneels down to stroke her soft fur. She purrs and rubs her face against his knee, but follows Nick when he stalks off.

“Do you want anything to drink or–”

“Let’s just sit down,” Alex says. He puts his hand on Nick’s back and nudges him into the living room.

“I’m sorry,” Nick mutters and sits down on the couch with a heavy sigh.

“It’s not your fault that you couldn’t get home faster.”

“I know, but…” Nick heaves another sigh and reaches out to pull Alex down next to him. “I actually knew what I wanted to say to you, I’ve been thinking about it for days, and now my brain just wants to go to sleep.”

“Let it go to sleep,” Alex says and wraps an arm around him. “Just… relax. It’s okay. I can leave if you–”

“No,” Nick says. “Don’t leave. Please.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

Nick yawns, grabs the remote and hands it to Alex before he scoots closer and rests his head against Alex’s shoulder.

Alex turns on the TV and goes to the NHL Network where the Comets are playing against the Eagles. Alex’s team. Or, well, they could have been his team. They drafted him. If his life had gone differently, there’s a chance that he’d be out on the ice right now, playing against the Comets.

He doesn’t usually get lost in the what ifs, but when he sees the Eagles play, he sometimes can’t help himself.

Nick is heavy against his shoulder, fast asleep only a few minutes after they start watching the game. Alex shifts him gently so his arm won’t fall asleep and settles back against the couch cushions. Emily joins them, too, a soft black ball of fur on the other end of the couch. Alex somehow slipped right into this without missing a single beat, without wondering, without a lot of back and forth.

It’s all up to Nick. And if Nick wants him here, he’ll be here.

Maybe this’ll work for a few weeks, maybe for a few months. There’s no way of telling, and Alex is okay with just finding out.

When the game ends – the Eagles end up absolutely murdering the Comets with three goals late in the third period – Alex switches through the channels for a while and eventually ends up watching the Lions vs Scorpions game. The Scorpions are in the lead already, even though the game has just started.

Nick twitches when the Scorpions’ goal horn sounds for their second goal, but he doesn’t wake up.

This is really not how Alex thought this evening would go, but in the end it doesn’t really matter if they talk about this today or tomorrow. They sent texts back and forth every day while Nick was on the road, and one evening he gave Alex a call and they talked for nearly two hours about whatever they could think of.

It made Alex wonder, just for a moment, if they could make something real out of this. But the way things are right now – Nick in the league, Alex out to only a handful of people – what could they actually be? Friends with benefits? Alex wouldn’t say no to it, but he wouldn’t know if that’s even something Nick might want.

He can tell when Nick wakes up again, because he starts to slowly run his fingers over Alex’s arm, along the scars that broken glass left behind. Alex puts his hand on top of Nick’s to make him stop. It’s not that he hates it, but he doesn’t want to talk about  _that_  tonight and he doesn’t want Nick to get any ideas.  

“Sorry,” Nick whispers.

“It’s okay,” Alex whispers back and releases Nick’s hand. “Just don’t ask me about it.” He can just say that to Nick and he’ll understand. That’s what he likes about Nick. You can tell him the truth and he’ll accept it; you don’t need any excuses.

“I won’t,” Nick says. He shifts, looks up at Alex, then at the TV, where commercials are playing.

“Scorpions are leading 2-0.”

“Good,” Nick says quietly. “Alex…”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what to do. About us. I don’t…”

“That’s okay,” Alex says. He figured as much. This won’t be easy, it won’t just work out because they want it to, but they also won’t go their separate ways and pretend that none of this ever happened.

“But you deserve better than  _I don’t know_.”

“Okay, but that’s all I need to know for now,” Alex says. “I don’t need to know exactly how you’re feeling or where you want this to go. I just want to know what you want. Right now. And right now you don’t know. And that’s fine. It’s fine, Nicky.”

Nick lets out a soft breath.

“I know that the position you’re in isn’t easy. I’m not… I don’t have any expectations, okay?”

“Okay,” Nick says.

Alex chews on his bottom lip. “I don’t know what I want either. But I like having you around.”

Nick looks up at him again, the smile on his face so gentle that it makes Alex think that maybe he does know what he wants and is just too scared to even think it.

“If you don’t mind…” Nick says. “Right now I just wanna sit here with you.”

“I think that’s fine.”

Nick nods. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Alex echoes.

Nick wiggles until he’s stuck between the couch and Alex, and his head is on Alex’s chest and his arm is wrapped around him tightly. “Can you stay?” Nick asks.

Alex laughs. “I already told you that I won’t leave.”

“I meant… stay the night.”

“Yeah,” Alex says. “I got that.”

Nick smiles sheepishly. “Okay. Good.” He frowns at the TV. “How invested are you in watching this game?”

“You wanna go to bed?” Alex asks. “We can go to bed.”

“Are you s–”

“Yes,” Alex interrupts and turns off the TV. He nudges Nick into an upright position. “Let’s go.”

Nick shoots him a grateful smile.

Alex isn’t sure why he thought that it would be more complicated than this. They’ve had enough complications. When Nick takes him by the hand and pulls him up the stairs, it somehow feels like they’ve done this a billion times already.


	71. secrets, Chapter 14.2

**secrets**

 

**Chapter 14.2**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals** @NHLCardinals

As we’re approaching the end of the regular season, Nick Rivera still leads the Cardinals in points: “I’m happy that I’m able to contribute.” Watch the full interview here: cards.tv/03-07-2018/7hiF32J

*

When Nick wakes up, there’s something heavy on his leg and something soft next to his arm. Both of those things could be Emily but she can’t be in two places at once and he definitely closed his bedroom door last night, because… because Alex is here.

Nick rubs his eyes and blinks, finding Alex next to him. The soft thing next to his arm is Alex’s hair, and the heavy thing on his leg is Alex’s foot. He’s pretty sure that his alarm is about to go off. He often wakes up just a few minutes before it actually starts ringing and he usually stays in bed, the sheets pulled up to his chin.

He has practice this morning and Alex probably needs to go to the rink at some point. When Nick was turning on his alarm last night, Alex took one look at his phone and said, “Yeah, okay, I guess I’ll just get up when you get up.”

Alex is still fast asleep right now, though. He’s not snoring at the moment, but Nick could swear that he woke up at some point during the night because Alex was snoring right into his ear.

Nick almost wants to reach out and play with Alex’s curls, but he has no idea if he’s allowed to. Alex didn’t make much of a fuss last night, and Nick is eternally grateful for it. He was too exhausted to have a coherent conversation and he just couldn’t decide what to say to him in the end. There was so much. He had a whole list. He wanted to tell Alex how much he wants him to be happy, and that he’s not sure if he can give him what he wants, or what he needs, but that he’ll try, that he wants Alex here.

In the end, he didn’t even have to say any of that. Alex  _is_  here. He didn’t push him, didn’t ask any questions. Nick wants to talk to him over breakfast, though. He has so many questions. One of them is,  _So how does this work?_  Which of course he won’t ask. He’s just never done this before and he’s terrified that he’ll do something wrong. 

When his alarm starts to ring, Nick doesn’t turn it off immediately. He waits until Alex frowns, and groans and turns over, pulling the sheets with him. Then Nick turns it off.

“That’s a terrible alarm,” Alex grumbles.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” Nick says.

“So?”

“So it did its job,” Nick says and sits up so he can peer over the mountain of sheets that Alex is currently buried under. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Alex says and rolls onto his back. “Good morning.”

“Do you have time to stay for breakfast?”

“Honestly, I have time for breakfast and to watch a movie and to play a board game and to water your plants and to play with your cat and to–”

“Okay, I get it, it’s early.”

“Too early,” Alex says gruffly. He stretches and kicks off the sheets. He borrowed one of Nick’s Cardinals shirts last night, one of the soft gray ones that has Nick’s number above the logo.

Nick smirks.

“What’re you looking at?”

“Nothing,” Nick says. He doesn’t look away, though. Alex is in his bed, how could he look away from that?

“Stop,” Alex says and half-heartedly swats at him.

“Fine, I’ll stop…”

He leans down to give Alex a kiss, belatedly realizing that he hasn’t even brushed his teeth yet, but Alex clearly very much doesn’t give a shit and pulls Nick on top of him, kissing him back until they both decide they’re too lazy to keep going and Alex starts dozing off again.

Nick would consider going on a run now if Alex wasn’t here, but Alex  _is_  here, so Nick doesn’t move an inch. His phone starts going off again some time later. This time, it’s not an alarm, though. Someone’s calling him.

“Hm?” Alex says.

Nick almost wants to ignore it, but it might be important. He looks up and… “It’s my mom.”

“You should get that,” Alex says and sits up. “I’ll use your shower, okay?”

“Sure,” Nick says and grabs his phone.

It turns out that his mom just wanted to check on him. Apparently she sent him a text last night after that high stick to ask if he was okay and he never replied to her. He can see why she was worried, because he  _always_  replies to texts from his mom.

The problem with Nick’s mom – and it’s really not a huge problem – is that she always has a lot to say. Getting off the phone while she’s talking is an art that Nick will likely never master.

Alex comes sneaking out of the bathroom while he’s still on the phone, a towel wrapped around his waist, picking up clothes as he goes. Nick tries not to look, but his gaze lingers on the scar that seems to be running down Alex thigh to his knee. It’s mostly covered by the towel. Alex vanishes a moment later and Nick feels guilty that he looked. Although Alex never told him not to look. He just told him not to ask.

Nick finds Alex in the kitchen once he’s managed to say goodbye to his mom. Alex has started the coffee and there’s eggs and bacon in a pan. It looks like Alex has already had half of it. His jacket is slung over the back of a chair.

“When are you leaving?” Nick asks.

With a glance at the oven clock, Alex says, “Five minutes. I wanna get Byron before I head to the rink.”

“Right, yeah, makes sense. Okay…” Nick steps up to him and wraps his arms around Alex’s waist. He doesn’t know when he’ll see Alex again, so he’ll just make the most of those five minutes. “I should have just called her back.”

“No, hey, it’s fine. What are you doing tonight?”

Nick pulls back so he can look up at Alex. “You wanna come over again?”

Alex shrugs. “Do you want me to?”

“I… Yeah. That’d be nice. I can cook dinner.” Nick has cooked dinner for Alex before, but it wasn’t a date, and it actually made his heart hurt a little. He didn’t know that was a feeling that really existed. Nick reaches up, his fingers trailing down the side of Alex’s neck, and he doesn’t quite manage to fight back a smile.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Nothing,” Nick replies, gently tapping his finger against Alex’s skin.

Alex rolls his eyes. “You gave me a fucking hickey, didn’t you?”

Nick snorts. He did. And he doesn’t even feel bad about it.

“Thanks a lot,” Alex grumbles.

“I’m sorry.”

Alex gives Nick’s side a pinch. “You’re really not sorry.”

Nick squirms away with a laugh.

“Okay,” Alex says, “I really need to go now, but I’ll see you tonight, yeah? I’ll be done at the rink around six.”

“I’ll be here.”

Alex nods and Nick has to let him go now, but there’s one more thing. One little thing that just needs a yes or a no. They could talk about it later, but Nick already knows that it’ll be distracting him all day, so when Alex is almost out the door, he says, “Alex, wait…”

Alex stops in the doorway. “Yeah?”

“Are we… Is this… Are you going to date other people?” Nick asks. Because he certainly won’t. “I mean. In the near future.”

“No,” Alex says and it sounds like a question. “Why… Never mind. No, I won’t.”

“Okay,” Nick says. “See you later.”

Alex smiles and shakes his head a little. “Yeah. See you later.”

*

Sarah waits until Tuesday before she asks her parents about dinner. She texts her dad, because it seems easier to her somehow. He replies almost immediately, clearly happy that she wants to have dinner with them. Sarah suggested that they could go somewhere, but her dad’s apparently in the mood to cook for everyone and promises that he’ll make Grandma’s Hillie’s gumbo.

There’s no way that Sarah is saying no to Grandma Hillie’s gumbo, so she agrees. She wanted to do this in a restaurant because it would likely keep her mom from getting too mad at her, but she also likes that this way no one will be listening in.

She’s nervous all week. She tries not to let it show, but Nadira notices anyway. She’s clearly doing her utmost to make Sarah feel better and Sarah so, so appreciates it, but when she drives to her parent’s house on Friday she’s a fucking wreck. There’s no other way to put it. When she’s pulled into the driveway of her parents’ house, she sits in the car for about five minutes, staring at the front door, trying to guess just how wrong this might go tonight.

Nadira is at her parents’ house tonight, too. They’ll meet up at Sarah’s place later for a formal meeting to discuss how things went. Nadira’s plan was to just tell her parents, “As soon as I’m into the door. I’ll get it out of the way, then they can ask all their awkward questions and then we can move on to something else.”

Sarah wishes she could be as chill about this as Nadira was this morning when she left Sarah’s place for work.

“Okay,” Sarah whispers to herself. “Just go in. Get it over with.”

She already knows that she won’t be able to bring herself to say it as soon as she’s in through the door. Not even as soon as they’ve sat down for dinner. She’ll probably need until dessert at the very least to convince herself to bring up Nadira.

Her dad opens the door for her and gives her a big hug; her mom greets her from the living room. She’s reading some science journal, her glasses low on her nose. She puts it down to give Sarah a hug, too, and they all head into the kitchen, where Sarah immediately springs a, “So, what’s new?” on them, so she won’t have to talk about her life for a little while. Her parents talk about work, and the neighbors, and Sarah’s grandpa, and they’re busy chatting until they actually sit down for dinner.

The conversation eventually turns to Sarah’s life when her dad says, “So, playoffs are coming up, right?” He has the biggest smile on his face. “I hope you’re putting aside tickets for your dad.”

“Of course,” Sarah says, smiling back at him. “Mom, are you planning on coming, too?”

“I’ll check my schedule, darling.”

Sarah nods. That’s pretty much the answer she was expecting. “Sounds good.”

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do after the end of the season?” her mom asks. It sounds so casual when she says it, but Sarah is well aware that there’s nothing casual about it.

“I have,” Sarah says. She could keep playing, she could apply for a coaching job, she could put her actual degree to use, or she could do something else entirely. “But I haven’t decided yet.”

“Have they offered you a contract extension?” her dad asks.

“They haven’t.”

He shakes his head. “They should.”

Sarah’s mom huffs. “She was going to retire last year, Franky, I highly doubt that she’s interested.”

“Why don’t we ask  _her_ …” Her dad raises his eyebrows at her. “Are you interested?”

“Depends on the contract, obviously. But I’d definitely consider it.”

Her mom goes a little bug-eyed. “You would?”

“Can’t hurt to check out the offers,” her dad says good-naturedly. “Especially if the playoffs go well. Even at this point… everyone will want you on their team.”

“Oh, shush,” Sarah says. “A friend told me about a coaching position down in East Harbor.”

“Coaching?”

“Yes, mom. The college hockey teams have coaches,” Sarah says, nodding at her dad. Who coaches a college football team.

“I didn’t know you were even interested in coaching,” her dad says. He loves being a coach and helping out the boys. He’s basically a dad to all of them.

“I’m really not sure if I am, but I guess it’s worth considering.”

“How stable of a position would that be, then, darling?” her mom asks.

“I’m not sure,” Sarah asks and it comes out a little snippy. She didn’t come here to be interrogated on her future employment situation. It’s something she’ll have to think long and hard about very soon. But not before playoffs have even started.

Her dad then launches into a story about the boys he’s coaching and the atmosphere isn’t quite as tense anymore after that, but Sarah came here for a reason, so there’s a good chance that things are about to go downhill again.

They’ve moved on to dessert – her dad has made Sarah’s favorite chocolate mousse cake – when Sarah finally manages to talk herself into getting to the point. “By the way,” she says, “I’ve started seeing someone.”

Her mom immediately perks up at that. “You have?”

Her dad looks like he wants to hold up his hand so Sarah can give him a high five, but he only smiles at her in the end.

“Who is he?” her mom asks. She smiles, too. “And when do we get to meet him?”

“You can meet  _her_  whenever you want.”

There’s a moment of prolonged silence that becomes harder and harder to bear. Sarah feels like she should say something, because her mom is giving her a look that spells out  _explain_  in every way imaginable, but Sarah refuses to explain herself. There’s nothing to explain. Her parents already know that she’s bi, they’ve been over that, and it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that she’s dating a girl.

What her mom says in the end, is just, “Her?”

“Yes.  _Her_. Nadira.”

Sarah’s mom presses her lips together, her eyes on Sarah’s dad, who’s practically glaring her into silence.

“If you’d excuse me,” Sarah’s mom says and gets up, marching out of the room, her heels clacking on the tiles in the hallway.

“That went well,” Sarah grumbles. Unsurprisingly, it went exactly the way Sarah thought it was going to go.

“Give her a few minutes.”

“She won’t like this any better in a few minutes,” Sarah says. “You’re happy for me, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am. And I’d love to meet Nadira if she wants to meet us.”

“Okay,” Sarah says.

“Your mom will come around. You know how she is, she wants things to be a certain way, and she makes plans and forgets to tell you about them, and everything that isn’t her plan just takes her a while to accept.”

Sarah sighs.

“You have to understand that your mom wants certain things for you.”

“Oh, really? Do I have to understand that?”

“I’m not trying to make excuses for her, Sarah. I’m just trying to explain why we’re having this issue right now.”

Sarah leans back in her chair, fingers restlessly tapping on her thigh. She could get up and find her mom and talk to her and figure out what exactly her problem is, but Sarah has a feeling that she already knows. Her mom’s dream for her is that she’ll marry rich, that she’ll find a stable job, and that she’ll have two kids, one boy and one girl. And her mom likely can’t see those things happening when Sarah is dating Nadira, because two women falling in love and being a family and adopting children is a foreign concept to her mother.

“Do you mind if I go home?” Sarah asks.

Her dad nods. “I’ll talk to your mom later.”

“Thank you.”

He gives her a hug before she leaves. Sarah hears the  _clack-clack_  of her mom’s shoes upstairs when she heads out, but she doesn’t come downstairs to say goodbye. In the car, she sits. And sits. And sits a little while longer. Maybe part of her is hoping that her mom will see that her car is still in the driveway and that she’ll come outside to talk to her, but she doesn’t, so Sarah eventually turns the key in the ignition and heads home.

Nadira’s car is already parked at the side of the street. Nessie has likely let her in.

Sarah lets out a drawn-out breath as she pulls into her parking spot behind the building. She knew that the evening was going to go like this, but she’s still disappointed. In the end, she has to admit that she was hoping she was wrong.

When Sarah walks into the apartment, the lights are off in the living room, so she heads to her room, which is where she finds Nadira, curled up on the bed with her own laptop, which she closes quickly when Sarah comes in.

“Hey, you,” Nadira says. “Nessie let me in, she headed out like fifteen minutes ago. I had to promise her that I wouldn’t touch any of her food.”

Sarah laughs and flops down on the bed, facedown.

“Oh,” Nadira says. “That bad?”

“I don’t even know.”

Maybe Sarah’s dad was right and her mom just needs some time, but she doesn’t want her mom to need some time. She needs her mom to be supportive.  _Right now_. Not in a week, or a month, or a year. She groans into the mattress.

“I’m sorry,” Nadira says softly.

“How was your dinner?” Sarah asks. It’s pretty muffled, so she isn’t even sure if Nadira heard her.

“Good,” Nadira replies. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Sarah hums.

“Can I do anything?”

“Just don’t go anywhere.”

Nadira wraps her arm around her a moment later and says, “I won’t.”

“Good,” Sarah says.


	72. secrets, Chapter 14.3

**secrets**

 

**Chapter 14.3**

 

*

**Finn Engel**  @finniescoots

seeing my friends happy really does melt my cold black heart. but just a little bit.

*

Alex could be home right now, lying on the couch with Byron. It’s Wednesday, and he rarely spends his Wednesdays at the rink. But Nick is at the rink and so Alex decided to drop by for a little while.

Nick is on the ice in full practice gear. It’s his day off, but when has that ever stopped him?

Alex is sitting on the boards by the bench with a stack of pucks and Nick’s water bottle and he almost knocks over both when Finn sneaks up on him. He’s here early, probably because he was at Andy’s place and Andy had to leave for work.

“Sorry,” Finn whispers and puts his hand on Alex’s arm. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Alex huffs at him.

Finn doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t ask Alex why he’s here on a Wednesday morning when it’s his day off.

They both watch Nick for a while as he runs stick-handling drills all by himself, then Finn squeezes Alex’s arm. “Does it make you sad?”

“Not anymore,” Alex says. He’s not sure what exactly Finn meant, but it doesn’t matter in the end. It’s not like he’s crying himself to sleep every night because he will never play hockey again.

“Are you sure?” Finn asks.

Alex lets out a slow breath. Finn wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t seeing something that Alex is trying to hide. Is he sure? Maybe it still stings a little, and maybe it will always sting a little, but he has other things now that he couldn’t have had if he was playing hockey.

“I mean,” Finn goes on, “it’s okay to be sad that you never got to become who you thought you were meant to be.”

“I’m not really sure anymore,” Alex says. “You know, if that’s really what I was meant to be. I would have just spent my entire life trying to live up to my dad’s standards and trying to be better than him. And now I… don’t have to do that.”

Finn hums.

It’s not an easy thing to talk about. If he could, would Alex go back and change things? Absolutely, but not really for himself. There were two other people in that car.

“What are you doing here anyway?” Finn asks.

“Just watching.” Alex shrugs, then he remembers that it’s his day off and he’s not just staying late, he’s actually not supposed to be here at all. “And Nick and I were gonna go out for lunch in a bit, so…”

“Wow, look at you… social butterfly.”

“Shut up.”

Finn laughs and pats his arm. “Seriously, Alex. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Noticed what?”

Finn gives him an unimpressed look. “Who’s the guy?”

“What?”

“The guy.”

Alex presses his lips together. He honestly didn’t think he was that transparent. Although, he does spend a lot of time at Nick’s. And Connor and Nadira know that he’s seeing someone, obviously. He couldn’t just  _not_  mention it.

“Don’t even try to tell me that there isn’t a guy,” Finn goes on. “You had a hickey the other day. A hickey, Alex. And you’re smiling. All the time. It’s scary.”

Alex rolls his eyes, because, okay, that hickey really did make things pretty obvious. And it wasn’t even his fault. “I can’t tell you,” Alex says. “He isn’t out.”

“Oh, crap,” Finn says. “That’s… unfortunate.”

“It’s his choice.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. Andy isn’t out to his parents and it’s hard for him and I just… whoever that guy is, I feel bad for him. Anyway. He makes you smile, so I guess I like him, he can–”

Nick shoots a puck at them and it bounces off the boards right in front of them.

“Yikes,” Finn says and ducks behind Alex.

Alex shakes his head at Nick and flips him off. Nick blows him a kiss in return.

“Hockey players,” Finn grumbles. “Can’t believe I’m dating one of those guys, honestly. And Andy only plays for fun, so he’s, like, a lite version of a jock.”

Alex snorts. “Is he–” He gets interrupted by his phone when it starts to buzz in his pocket. “It’s my dad.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I’m not gonna pick up.”

Finn gives him the judging side-eye.

Alex just doesn’t know what this is about and he doesn’t want to find out either. It’s highly unlikely that his mom told him about the conversation they had. Phone calls from his dad just make him anxious, is all. He always wants something; he never calls just to catch up.

Finn clears his throat.

“Fine, I’m picking up,” Alex says and walks down the tunnel. He can hear Finn’s screech when another puck bounces off the boards, probably right next to him.

“Alex,” his dad says when Alex picks up the phone. “How are you?”

“Okay,” Alex replies. “How are you?”

“Excellent. We’re in Florida, having a nice day off.”

“Sounds good,” Alex says slowly. He can hear the murmur of voices down the tunnel now. Finn laughs, then Nick joins in. At least those two are having a good time.

“Yeah, I just had lunch with the assistant coaches, really nice place, excellent guacamole, and Bobby mentioned that he saw a picture of you with the Cedar Mills peewee team.”

Well,  _shit_. “Oh, did he?”

“Yeah. He asked if you were coaching them.”

Alex probably can’t get away with another,  _Oh, did he?_  “I’m just helping out,” Alex says.

“So you  _are_  coaching them?”

“No. Yes. Until they find someone to replace Coach Harvey.”

“It’s very nice of you to help out,” his dad says.

“Yeah, I guess. They just didn’t have anyone else.”

“How are you liking it?”

This is Alex’s least favorite conversation. Because that  _how are you liking it_  is a passive aggressive way of saying this: “Alex, don’t you think you should have taken a coaching job when I offered to find you one several years ago? You know I was right. You enjoy coaching. You’re good at it. Do you regret that you didn’t listen to me? Now is a good time for you to tell me that I was right all along.”

Yeah. All of that is very neatly stuffed into those five words.

“The kids are really good,” Alex says, because avoiding that question is clearly the best way to go. “We won our game last weekend.”

“Glad to hear that,” his dad says. “I’m not surprised.”

Alex hums.

“Well, good luck with the next game.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Alex clears his throat. “Sorry, I gotta go, I have plans for lunch.”

“Bit late for lunch,” his dad muses. Alex can hear the smile in his voice; his dad just loves calling him out on this sort of stuff, but this time it’s not even a lie.

“Nick is taking his time.”

“Oh, you’re headed out for lunch with Nick Rivera?”

“Yeah.”

“That boy is well worth his money,” Alex’s dad says. “Incredible passes. And that goal on Thursday in New York? Did you see that game?”

“Only part of it. I saw that goal, though.”

“Like magic.” He laughs. “Anyway, enjoy your lunch. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Hopefully not  _that_  soon. “Sure. Bye, Dad.”

Alex leans back against the wall with a sigh and closes his eyes. Of course his dad was right. Alex has always known that he’d love coaching. He knows he’s good at it. Alex hates all of this.

“Existential crisis?” Finn asks.

Alex opens his eyes to watch Finn come towards him. “Eh…”

Finn ruffles his hair in passing, and says, “Everything’s gonna be fine, I promise. I gotta go teach some figure skating. See ya, babe.”

“Yeah,” Alex says, “see ya.”

Once Finn has disappeared down the tunnel, Nick gets off the ice and comes waddling towards him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Alex says. “My dad called.”

“Oh… Everything okay?”

“Yeah, he was just… I don’t even know. Telling me in his subtle way that he was right all along, I guess.”

Nick pulls a face.

“It’s fine,” Alex says. “Still wanna head out for lunch?”

“Yeah, absolutely, just let me…” Nick vaguely waves his hand in direction of the locker rooms. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

“Sure,” Alex says.

Nick smiles, looks up and down the tunnel, and leans down to give him the quickest kiss of all time before he speed-waddles away.

“Right,” Alex says. “Okay.”

Looks like that’s his life now.

*

“Hey, so, for my birthday…”

Alex tears his eyes away from his phone. He looks like he hasn’t slept.

Connor knows what’s going on. Alex is seeing someone – that’s what he told them, that he’s seeing  _someone_. He obviously doesn’t want them to know who it is and Alex has been coming and going at pretty strange times, so Connor won’t even ask.

“Yeah?” Alex says.

He pretty much organized the entire party for Connor. All Connor had to do in the end was to invite the team and their partners. And a bunch of other people. Connor isn’t sure if they’ll actually have enough room for everyone, but it’ll really just be an informal thing. Pizza. Beer. They have a game the next day, so it won’t be anything too wild. A bunch of the guys have already told him that they might just drop by for a little while. A lot of them have kids, so Connor gets that they want to spend time at home when they’re not on the road.

“I know we have that whole beer and pizza thing figured out,” Connor says, “but I should probably buy, like, cake. Or some kind of dessert.”

“Okay, but…. Not a birthday cake.”

“No?”

“No, because a birthday cake is a cake that other people give you on your birthday.”

“Are you saying that you’re gonna buy me a birthday cake?” Connor asks.

“Stop asking me questions right now,” Alex says gruffly.

Connor grins. “Aw, you’re so awesome, Alex. The actual best.”

Alex waves him off and stands up, phone still in hand. He’s probably about to head out. Connor is also about to head out. And so is Nadira. Her travel mug is already on the counter, ready to go.

She comes shuffling into the kitchen, clearly frazzled. “Okay, okay, okay… I’m going. I am.”

“Everything all right?” Alex asks.

“Totally fine. Totally okay.”

“Totally, huh?” Connor asks.

“Ughhh…” Nadira leans against the counter with a sigh. “I’m gonna, like, officially meet a bunch of Sarah’s teammates tonight. We’re going to the pub after work.”

Connor frowns at her. “Wait, don’t they already know you?”

“Yes, of course they know me, but I’m not just reporter Nadi tonight, and I’m also not Sarah’s friend Nadi, I’m Sarah’s  _girlfriend_  Nadi and that’s a totally different thing, ya feel?”

“They like you, though,” Alex says. “They’re not gonna stop liking you all of a sudden.”

“Alex, I know you’re trying to be helpful, but you’re not.”

Connor can’t help but snort.

“And you’re not helping either,” Nadira says and stabs Connor’s chest with her finger. She wiggles her eyebrows at him. “My, my, Waldo.”

“Are you objectifying me?”

“Oh, for sure,” Nadira says and gives him another poke. “Alex, have you ever touched Waldo’s chest? If not, you should. It’s an experience.”

“No, I’m good,” Alex mutters and finishes his coffee.

“Okay, that just made my morning a lot better,” Nadira says. “Going to work now. I’m gonna fantasize about telling everyone that I touched Connor Walden’s chest this morning. Like, I’m not even attracted to men and it’s just… impressive, you know?”

Connor smirks.

“Buff hockey man, tell me that it’ll be okay.”

Connor gives her a big hug. “It’ll be okay.”

“Okay, I’m going for real,” Nadira says and pulls away. She waves at them and quickly shuffles away, only to return again a few seconds later to grab her travel mug with a huff. “Good _bye_.”

This time, she stomps away.

“Honestly,” Connor says once Nadira is gone, “it is so stressful when you meet your girlfriend’s friends, because you just know that they’re judging your every move.”

“As they should,” Alex says with a small smile.

“It’s nice, though,” Connor says. “You know, that Sarah can do that. Introduce her girlfriend to her team. I mean, like, the guys don’t bring their boyfriends.”

Alex hums and puts his empty coffee mug in the sink. “It’s… daunting. Telling an entire team…” He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t. It’s too risky, because even if most of the guys are on your side, you can be absolutely certain that there’s at least one, or probably even several guys who’ll look at you differently afterwards.”

Connor is probably about to explode with how curious he is, but he’s trying so hard to be a good friend. A good friend who’s not nosy.

“What?” Alex asks.

“Nothing.”

“Waldo, come on, what?”

“You never told anyone?” Connor asks. “Like, on your college team?”

“I told two people that I’m gay in college,” Alex says. “One of them was our captain and he was a great guy, but I never introduced him to my boyfriend. I didn’t even tell him that I had one. And the other guy… well, he  _was_  my boyfriend, at least sort of, so…” He shrugs. “But, yeah, we agreed that we wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“That must have been hard,” Connor says. He remembers Shane sneaking around with his boyfriend day in, day out. He remembers how hard it was for him, how scared he was that someone could find out. Connor doesn’t know how he did it.

“At the time it just was what it was. We didn’t really overthink it. We just didn’t feel like we had any other options, so the conversation we had about it took about a minute. Essentially, we had nothing to discuss.” Alex shrugs. “I have more room to think about these things now. I mean, I’m standing here, talking to you about it and I never thought that was something I could do.”

Connor doesn’t really know how to tell Alex how much he appreciates that he gets to hear this. He’s bad at words. He stumbles through interviews and conversations. He knows Alex isn’t much of a hugger, so Connor gives him a one-armed squeeze and Alex doesn’t complain. He actually leans into it a little.

Then Alex sighs. “Okay, if I don’t leave now, I’m gonna be late for work.”

“Sorry,” Connor says and lets go of him.

“Well, I’m my own boss,” Alex says. “What am I gonna do? Fire myself?”

Connor laughs.

“I’ll see you later,” Alex says. “Actually, maybe not… Well, I guess we’ll see.”

Okay, so Connor definitely isn’t going to ask, because he also needs to move his ass out the door and they’re just slipping from one conversation into another here, but he can’t keep himself from saying, “Hey, Alex? If you ever, like… need help taking care of Byron when you’re staying out late… I don’t mind. Or, like, if you want the house to yourself. I can crash on Nick’s couch, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”

Alex laughs and shakes his head. “I… Thanks, Waldo. Really. You don’t have to, but… I appreciate the offer.”

“Sure. Just say the word.”

Alex nods. Something about this is apparently high-key amusing to him. “Have a good day, Waldo.”

“You too.”

When Alex calls to Byron to follow him out to the car, Connor can still hear the smile in his voice.

*

“Okay, okay, almost there, we’re almost–  _Shit_.”

Nadira only barely manages to catch Sarah when she slips on a bit of ice on the sidewalk. “You okay?”

“I’m fiiine.”

Behind them, Nessie cackles. She grabs one of Sarah’s arms and gently leads her onwards with Nadira holding on to Sarah’s other arm. “There, there,” Nessie says, “we’ll get you home. Those two beers you had were clearly too much.”

Sarah huffs at them. “Shut up, I’m not drunk.”

“We know, honey,” Nadira says and slides her hand down Sarah’s arm to intertwine their fingers.

They were out with nearly half of Sarah’s team and they had a wonderful time and now Nadira isn’t even sure why she was so nervous about this in the first place. Everyone was great about it, no one had any issues with Nadira’s job, and they actually didn’t talk about hockey all that much, except when someone mentioned the Panthers’ upcoming playoff games.

At this point, it looks like they’ll be facing DC in the semifinal game, but Nadira is also keeping an eye on Boston, because they still have a chance to take DC’s spot in the standings. Nadira already has the okay from the  _Gazette_  to go to away games if the Panthers end up in a spot that wouldn’t give them home ice in the two finals games.

Nessie leads the way around the bakery and to their door. She is once again wearing her murder-weapon-heels and steps over little leftover patches of snow with a grace that Nadira couldn’t muster, no matter what shoes she’s wearing. She’s in a pair of purple converse and a New York Ravens shirt tonight, because she didn’t want to show up in her work outfit and she also didn’t want to look like she was trying too hard. She wanted to look like Nadi, and those are the clothes she most wanted to wear. One of Sarah’s teammates who grew up in the New York City area offered her condolences when she saw Nadira’s shirt. Getting the Ravens into a playoff spot this season will require a minor miracle. They can still make it, but Nadira doesn’t exactly have high hopes.

Up in the apartment, Nessie heads straight for the fridge, humming quietly, and bids them a good night when they tell her that they’re going to bed.

Nadira flops down on Sarah’s bed without an invitation and sticks up her legs so she can somehow get to her shoelaces.

“I almost want to take a picture,” Sarah says.

“Don’t you dare.”

Sarah laughs and starts tossing her clothes in the vague direction of her laundry basket and pulls on a shirt that Nadira has been looking for for about a week.

“Hey,” Nadira says and points at her.

“Yes?”

Nadira grins. “I was looking for that.”

“Sorry, I’m a sneaky thief. A vile felon.”

“It’s okay, it looks cute on you.”

Sarah smiles and hops into bed, the mattress shaking.

“So,” Nadira says, “tonight went well.”

“It did,” Sarah says.

Nadira knows that Sarah was upset about that dinner at her parents’ house, so she’s glad that at least something went well. It doesn’t make up for the lack of support from Sarah’s mom, though, and Nadira can see it written all over Sarah’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Nadira says softly.

Sarah shrugs. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”

“Okay,” Nadira says. “You wanna hear about my latest existential crisis?” She says it jokingly to lighten the mood, but she really does have a bit of an existential crisis going on these days.

“Do tell,” Sarah says and props herself up so she can look at Nadira.  

“I’ve been looking at… you know… jobs. In the area. And not just stuff I could apply for currently, but also at what might be opening up. And…” Nadira shrugs. “My dream was always covering NHL hockey. But I feel bad for wanting to cover men’s hockey when I love women’s hockey just as much.”

“That’s–” Sarah chews on her bottom lip. “Nadi. There should be more women covering men’s hockey anyway. What you want in your life is important and it’s not like you’ll just stop supporting us.”

“True, but… Well, I probably won’t find a job anyway, and I’ll be stuck working for Brad for the rest of my life.”

“Aw, Nadi…” Sarah reaches out to run her fingers through Nadira’s hair. “Don’t say that.”

“I have to, it makes me feel better.”

Sarah laughs and snuggles up to her. “Do you think there’s anything else that might make you feel better?”

Nadira looks over at the sheepish smile on Sarah’s face. “Well, I could think of a couple of things.”


	73. secrets, Chapter 14.4

**secrets**

 

**Chapter 14.4**

 

*

**Connor Walden** @ConnorWaldo

if this cake only tastes half as amazing as it looks it’ll still be the best cake I’ve ever eaten instagram.com/p/j7Ec42

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

do you think I can get an uber to your place? I’m in Ottawa? not that far right??

|

**Brady Rosenberg**  @rosenburger91

fedex the boy some cake @ConnorWaldo

|

**shane wilds**  @shanewilds33

I’m not gonna share it rosie you’re playing for the enemy

|

**Brady Rosenberg**  @rosenburger91

can we be friends for two minutes? :(

|

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

@rosenburger91 wilder can be bribed with cute animal pictures

|

**Brady Rosenberg**  @rosenburger91

yo wilder you wanna see pictures of my two golden retrievers?

*

Nick has never been much of a party animal. He obviously goes to Connor’s birthday party, knowing full well that he’ll just be sitting in Alex’s basement, drinking a beer and eating pizza. And because it’s Connor. Who’s probably his favorite teammate of all time.

After he says hello to Connor, who’s wearing an oversized party hat and has a sticker on his shirt that reads,  _Hello, my name is BIRTHDAY BOY_ , Nick squeezes his way over to the bar and takes up permanent residence on the barstool at the very left, which is, incidentally, where Alex is standing behind the bar, idly taking a sip from a big red plastic cup as Nick approaches.

“Hey,” Nick says.

Alex smiles at him from behind his red cup. “Hey.”

Nick clears his throat and looks around. No one’s paying attention to them. Half the team is here, Ashley and Jamie are sitting on one of the couches, Finn is at the other end of the bar, and Sarah and Nadira are in the opposite corner, Sarah’s arm slung around Nadira, her head bent down so she can whisper to Nadira, who has the most smitten look on her face.

He glances back at Alex, who still hasn’t moved. “How’s it going?” Nick asks.

Alex frowns down at his cup. “I’m not sure how many of these I’ve had, but I’m pretty sure that I’ll, uh, end up being very drunk if I have, like, one or two more.”

Nick can’t help but snort. “I think you’re a bit drunk already.”

“See,” Alex says, “the reason I’m leaning against this wall is that the wall… it keeps me from tripping over my own feet.” He pats the wall. “Good wall.”

“This party literally started twenty minutes ago, I wasn’t that late.”

“True, but the pre-party started this afternoon when Connor got back from the rink. Pretty sure we invited you to that.”

Right, they did invite him to that, but he had an appointment, so he couldn’t swing by earlier. He thought all the pre-party was about was eating tons of unhealthy food, not getting absolutely plastered. Connor didn’t seem that drunk when Nick said hello to him, but Alex might be a bit more of a lightweight than Connor.

“You–” Alex trails off when his phone starts to ring. “Crap, the pizza. Nicky, can you carry pizza?”

Nick can carry pizza, in fact, he ends up carrying most of it, because the first thing Alex does when he moves away from the wall is trip over the leg of Nick’s barstool. Nick makes sure that Alex eats a good amount of pizza and gets him some water before he gets himself a slice.

While he’s deciding if he’d rather have veggies or pepperoni, Mike comes up to him and gives him a pat on the back. “Hey, Rivs. Looks like I got here just in time for the pizza. Had to tuck in the kids first.”

As far as Nick knows, Mike only has one kid. And a black lab. “I’m assuming that’s Sophia and… Puck?”

Mike grins. “Yeah. Puck’s a big baby.” He nods at Nick. “You here on your own?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just wondering. Some of the guys bring their girlfriends sometimes, you know?”

Nick blinks at him for a moment. “I… don’t have one.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Mike gives him another pat on the back, takes a slice of pepperoni pizza and wanders off.

Nick watches him walk away and then looks around to find Alex. His gaze first settles on Nadira and Sarah, who are still holding hands, but have moved from their little corner to talk to Santa and Bee. He finds Alex eventually – he’s currently being squashed by Connor, who’s telling everyone in their general vicinity that Alex is, “the best roommate ever, I’m telling you guys, the absolutliest… best. Absolutliest… No. Whatever. The best.”

Alex is smiling, red in the face, and Nick wishes he could go over there and just… maybe even just hold his hand, like Sarah and Nadira are holding hands. That would be good enough. Maybe he could lean against him a little bit.

As he stares, Alex finally catches him looking and raises his eyebrows at him.

Nick quickly looks away. For about two seconds. Then he looks over his shoulder again to find Alex detaching himself from Connor, saying that he needs to check on something upstairs. “Hey, Nicky, wanna help me out real quick?”

“Uh… sure.”

“I’m not gonna ask you if this has anything to do with cake,” Connor says, “but it’s cake time, isn’t it?”

Alex only gives him a detached glare and wanders off, not waiting to see if Nick is following him. Nick gives Connor’s shoulder a squeeze as he passes him and follows Alex up the stairs.

In the brightly lit hallway, Alex is waiting for him, smiling, his cheeks still flushed.

“You’re still drunk, aren’t you?” Nick asks.

Alex points at him. “I’m not. Maybe a little. Inebriated enough to suggest that we should sneak away for a few minutes.”

“Sneak away,” Nick echoes.

Alex nods, but he doesn’t move.

It takes Nick a moment to figure out that Alex is waiting for him to make a decision and to say yes or no. Nick looks around. It’s only them. Everyone else is downstairs. No one’s going to miss them for a little while, because Alex implied that they’re on a secret birthday cake mission. “Okay,” Nick says.

Alex almost looks surprised but wanders away, down the hall to the foyer, and into the other hallway that Nick knows leads to a guest room. That’s not where they end up, though. Alex grabs him by the wrist and tugs him through the next best doorway, into the study. It’s pitch-dark when the door clicks shut and Alex locks it.

“Hey,” Alex says softly and pulls Nick against him.

“Hey,” Nick replies and leans in for a kiss. At this point they’ve done this often enough that Nick doesn’t miss Alex’s mouth despite the darkness.

Alex wraps his arms around him and pulls him closer until Nick is pressed flush against him. Nick grabs a fistful of Alex shirt and makes sure to make the next five minutes count. He dips down his head to kiss Alex’s neck and hears Alex’s breath hitch in the dark.

“If you give me a hickey–”

Nick laughs and pulls away.

“Hey, no,” Alex says and pulls him back.

“How long is our super secret fake cake mission supposed to take?” Nick asks.

“Oh, it’s not fake.” Alex’s hands slowly wander up and down Nick’s sides. “There’s cake. It’s in the fridge downstairs, but the candles are in the kitchen.”

“And it’s taking us this long to get the candles?”

“Maybe I forgot where I put them,” Alex says.

A moment later, Nick can hear Alex jiggle at the doorknob to unlock it. Maybe he should have just enjoyed it for another minute or two.

*

“You’re so awesome.”

Connor can feel Alex shaking with laughter next to him.

“So awesome,” Connor says again.

“Waldo, I think he gets it,” Nick says.

“But he’s so awesome.” Connor gives Alex another squeeze. “Alex, you’re awesome.”

Alex swats at him half-heartedly and nearly drops his plate in the process.

“Careful,” Nick says and reaches out to steady Alex’s plate.

“It’s okay,” Alex says, quickly shoveling the last bite of his cake into his mouth. He looks around the kitchen with a sigh. “I should clean up.”

“I’ll help,” Connor says. It was his birthday party after all. It’s late and Alex has to be at the rink tomorrow morning. They were actually just going to put away the cake and go to bed – Sarah and Nadira are already in bed, they were giggling their way up the stairs when Connor, Alex and Nick headed into the kitchen.

“I can help, too,” Nick says. He blinks, then he yawns.

“You should sleep on the couch,” Connor says and slowly gets up. Nick probably had one beer several hours ago and is totally okay to drive home, but it’s late and Connor at least wanted to offer.

Nick, of course, waves him off and says, “Nah, it’s okay, I’ll drive home.”

Which is exactly what Connor expected. So he gives him a hug and tells him to just go home. He really doesn’t need to help them clean up. There’s not much left to clean up anyway and he can take care of most of it tomorrow before practice as well, so once Nick has left, waving at them before heading out the door, Connor gently nudges Alex out of the kitchen, only for Alex to escape his grasp.

“At least let me put the cake in the fridge.”

“Right, the cake,” Connor says, smiling again. “The cake that you made for me.”

Alex seriously baked an entire cake for him. And he decorated it with chocolate pucks and hockey sticks and there were candles on it and Connor almost wanted to cry a little bit. It was beautiful and he took about a hundred pictures of it.

“Thank you,” Connor says as they head out of the kitchen.

Alex laughs. “You’re welcome. You can stop saying thank you now, though.”

“Okay.” Connor gives him another hug. “This was the best birthday ever, honestly. I wish Shane could have had some of that cake, he would have loved it.”

“Sorry,” Alex says.

Connor shrugs. That’s just how it is during the season. When you have friends on other teams, you basically wave at each other in passing when you happen to be in the same city. Sometimes you’ll have time to head out for dinner together, sometimes you’ll just say hello real quick after practice. Shane is really the only one that Connor is in touch with regularly.

They’ll get a chance to hang out in the summer. Maybe they’ll train together. They’ll figure it out when the postseason is over for both of them, and who knows when that will be?

Hopefully sometime in June.

In the hallway, just before they reach the stairs, Alex hesitates and looks around.

“You can sneak out right now if you want to,” Connor says. He has a feeling that Alex is trying to get rid of him. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Alex raises his eyebrows at him.

“Actually, you probably shouldn’t be driving.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Alex says. “I just don’t know where I put my phone.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“It’s probably in the kitchen. I’ll, uh…” He takes two steps back, then he stops in his tracks. “I’m sorry that I keep sneaking around.”

Connor isn’t sure what to say to that for a moment, because he really wasn’t judging Alex for sneaking around. “It’s… okay.”

Alex nods. “I… Never mind. Go to bed, I’ll go find my phone.”

“No, come on, tell me.”

“I want to, but it’s not just me, and I just don’t want to… He doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“I get that,” Connor says. He makes a face, because that came out wrong. What he meant was is that he understands that it might be necessary when you’re in Alex’s position. He’s seen it before when he lived with Shane who had to sneak his boyfriend in and out of the house, who never got to go out on an actual date and never even mentioned that he was seeing someone. “I mean, not in the same way that you get it. But I… You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know,” Alex says. His smile is barely there. “He’s important to me.”

Connor wants to hug Alex a lot today, but he lets him get away this time. He doesn’t say anything, only nods and lets Alex wander off in search of his phone. What he knows about Alex now is that he doesn’t want to talk when it comes to personal things. He just wants to say his part and not discuss it or answer any questions. He wants to open up, but on his own terms. Connor can work with that.

He’s just glad that Alex trusts him enough to tell him these things at all. It means that somewhere along the way he did something right.


	74. secrets, Chapter 14.5

**secrets**

 

**Chapter 14.5**

 

*

**Cardinals Insider** @CardsInsider

Even with some key pieces missing, the Cardinals are showing no signs of slowing down.

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Nick Rivera on his 4-point night (2 goals, 2 assists): “That was kinda fun, wasn’t it?”

*

“Okay, so, I don’t want to be nosy or anything…” Nadira says as they walk up to A&P Center, definitely about to be nosy.

“But?” Alex asks. Because he heard that  _but_. He knows it’s coming. Obviously he could tell Nadira to not even ask, but he wants to know where this is going, because it might just be about the game.

“But I’m nosy,” Nadira says. “I’m turning into my mother  _and_  my father, who would probably drop dead if they didn’t know absolutely  _everything_  about  _everyone_.”

Alex laughs.

“So, Nick gave you tickets, right?” Nadira asks.

“Right.”

“Two tickets.”

“Yes.”

“So, your secret girlfriend who’s not actually a secret because you practically told us about her… does she hate hockey? Does she have something better to do tonight? I’m not complaining, because I love free hockey tickets, but I’m just wondering, you know?”

“I don’t have a girlfriend,” Alex says, deadpan. It’s not a lie.

“Your… mistress?”

“Oh, shush.”

Nadira cackles. “Sorry. I will shut up now.”

Alex chews on his bottom lip. He could leave it there, because Nadira is obviously trying to be done being nosy now. He has absolutely no obligation to say anything else. There’s no reason for him to say, “It’s a guy, Nadi. And he, uh, does have something better to do.”

Nadira grabs his arm, eyes wide. “Alex.”

“Yeah.”

Nadira shakes her head, squeezes his arm before she lets go of him and says, “Alrighty.”

And that’s it. At this point, Alex isn’t sure how he was ever afraid of this, but then he reminds himself that he still hasn’t told his dad and remembers quickly that he isn’t entirely fearless.

“Explain to me again why we’re here this early,” Nadira says as they line up for the VIP entrance.

Alex didn’t want to tell her, because it was supposed to be a surprise, but at this point he’s not even sure if it’s a good surprise anymore. He was at Nick’s this morning – he ended up spending the night even though he hadn’t meant to. It’s ridiculously hard to get out of Nick’s bed in the middle of the night. He woke up in the morning to the sound of Nick’s alarm, Nick already climbing out of bed, because it’s game day and he’s  _like that_  on game days.

Alex gets it. He decided to stay in bed for a little while longer and made sure to stay out of Nick’s way, but Nick returned a few minutes later and sat down at the end of the bed, the mattress quivering.

“Alex,” Nick said.

“Hm?”

Nick cleared his throat. “I might have mentioned to Harpy that you’re coming to the game tonight.”

“Oh,” Alex said.

“I was talking to him yesterday after practice and he really wants to say hi before the game,” Nick says. “You don’t have to, I told him I wasn’t sure if you could, but… Yeah. If you want to, I can set something up.”

So Alex told him to set something up. Because he likes Harpy and he thought Nadira might like to meet him, too. He’s now realizing that there’s something he didn’t consider, but they’re here now, before everyone else. He just said he wanted to leave early and Nadira went with it, but it’s probably time for Alex to explain.

“Okay, so,” Alex says, “we’re here early, because I’m saying hi to someone.”

Nadira grabs his arm again, her eyes comically wide. “Is it Nick Rivera?”

Alex snorts. “It’s not.”

“Sad.”

“You know how my dad used to play here?”

“I don’t know, Alex, do I know how your dad,  _Actual Hockey Superstar Zach Goldman_ , used to play here? I really don’t know.”

“Anyway,” Alex says, “I was around a lot as a kid and one of his teammates was Harpy and Harpy still works for the Cardinals and he wanted me to say hi tonight.”

“We’re meeting  _Harpy_?”

“Yeah. I just don’t want you to feel… I don’t know how to explain this.” Alex huffs. “You know how my dad keeps trying to push me into a certain direction and it annoys the fuck out of me, because I want to do things without my dad’s help?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m trying to… help you, I guess? Unless you want me to.”

“Help me  _how_?” Nadira asks.

“Well, I could mention that you’re looking for a Cardinals-related job? But I don’t want to get involved if you don’t want me to get involved. Because I won’t even mention it if you don’t want me to.”

“Oh,” Nadira says. “ _Oh_.”

“I mean, I certainly can’t promise you that he’ll pick up on it, but…”

“No, please do mention it,” Nadira says, bouncing up and down on her heels now. “Seriously. Don’t even… yes. Just… do that. Holy fuck.”

“Nadi–”

“I know, the likelihood that he offers me a job on the spot is very slim. Extra slim. So slim that there’s basically no chance at all. But yes. Mention it. Like, if it comes up. Don’t just… say it.”

“Yeah, I won’t just say, ‘Hey, Harpy, haven’t seen you in a while, also this is my friend Nadi and she’d really like a job here.’ Don’t worry.”

Nadira is still laughing when the door opens and Harpy himself pokes his head out the door.

“Right on time,” he says, his smile wide. “Come on in.”

“Thanks for inviting us,” Alex says.

They get waved into the arena and Harpy throws an arm around Alex. “Kiddo, the last time I saw you, you weren’t as tall as me yet.” He holds out his other hand to Nadira. “And who’s your friend?”

“That’s Nadira Patel,” Alex says.

“Nadira, so nice to meet you,” Harpy says. “Let me have a look at that jersey, so I’ll know which player I have to introduce you to.”

“Harpy, I think she’d rather talk to you, she sees Waldo pretty much every day.”

“She does?”

“They both live at my place.”

Harpy laughs as he ushers them into an elevator. “Do they?” He pats Alex’s shoulder. “And what are you up to these days?”

“I’m working at the rink, mostly. Actually, I own the rink. And I just started coaching peewee hockey, because they needed someone to help out.”

“Coaching like your dad, huh? I’m sure those kids are a lot harder to wrangle than the Sailors are, though.” Harpy turns to Nadira. “And what do you do if I may ask?”

Alex smiles. He didn’t even have to say anything, but that’s just Harpy for you. Alex remembers coming to the rink as a kid and it was always Harpy who’d come talk to him first and skate around with him and let him try on his gloves. For a while, Alex really wanted to be a goalie, just like Harpy, but his dad wasn’t too happy about it.

As they talk, Harpy leads them through doors and down hallways that are vaguely familiar to Alex. He spent a lot of time down here as a kid. They’ve painted the walls and they got new doors – they renovated the entire arena a few years back, but in the end it’s still the same place that Alex knew as a kid.

Photos of past teams line the walls. There must be one of his dad lifting the Cup somewhere in here, and sure enough, they pass one a moment later. It’s the first Cup he won; Alex knows because his dad doesn’t have a C on his jersey yet. At that point Alex probably wasn’t even an idea in his parents’ minds yet. They got married that summer, after Zach Goldman had lifted the Cup for the first time in his career. He was 24.

Seeing all of this, Alex can’t help but wonder who he would be if he’d gone on to play for the Eagles after college. What kind of person he’d be if he’d won the Cup when he was 24. He wonders if things would be falling into place for him the same way they are right now.

Harpy is deep in a conversation with Nadira, who’s talking about the Panthers’ season.

“And you write for the  _Gazette_ , you said?” Harpy asks. “Who’s your boss, then?”

Nadira’s poker face right now is honestly admirable. “Oh, it’s Brad Newton.”

“Oh,” Harpy only says.

“You know him?” Alex asks.

“We’ve met,” Harpy says, but doesn’t go into detail. When Harpy doesn’t have anything to say about someone, though, that really does say a lot in itself.

“You know, Nadira has covered the Cardinals before,” Alex throws in.

“You have?” Harps asks. “And I thought I knew everyone who comes and goes around here.”

Alex misses Nadira’s reply. They’re approaching the Cardinals’ locker room and a bunch of players are milling about. Lee Hellström is carrying a soccer ball, so Alex doesn’t have to guess where the guys are off to.

He sees Yoshi, and Mike Conrad, and Bunny. Alex has met a bunch of those guys, so he’s really not staring because he’s seeing them for the first time. He’s staring because he knows that Nick likes to play pregame soccer, and he and Ashley completely lost it over a video of Nick desperately trying to get the ball off a ledge by jumping and trying to swat at it. He was nowhere near tall enough to reach it and it took Yoshi to lift him up so he could finally grab the ball.

Sure enough, Nick comes strolling out of the locker room a moment later and Alex has to be really careful about what his face is doing.

He’s a bit stupid when it comes to Nick. He smiles every time he sees him. It’s just a reflex at this point. It takes him actual self-restraint not to just run over to him. He tears his eyes off Nick, who’s wearing one of those really tight shirts that leave nothing to the imagination. It’s weird, because Alex saw Nick wander about his bedroom this morning and he wasn’t wearing a single item of clothing, but this is doing some really strange things to his heart rate.

Nick’s lips twitch a little when he spots Alex and he waves him over.

“Excuse me,” Alex says to Harpy and Nadira, “I’ll be right back.”

Nadira probably wants to say hello to Nick, too, but Alex isn’t going to wait for her. Because Alex is a bit stupid when it comes to Nick.

“Hey,” Nick says and gives Alex’s shoulder a squeeze, his hand slowly dropping down to the 13 on the sleeve of the jersey that Alex is wearing. “When did you get that?”

Alex shrugs. He picked it up on a whim. “The other day.”

“I could have got you one,” Nick says lowly.

“Shut up,” Alex mutters, mainly because he can’t deal with the thought of Nick bringing him home a jersey.

Nick grins. “Anyway. Glad you came.”

“Yeah, Nadi and Harpy clearly have a lot to talk about.”

“Are you meddling?”

“I’m meddling with permission,” Alex says.

Nick smiles brightly and gives his arm another squeeze before he turns to go. “I’ll see you… later?”

By later, Nick clearly means,  _I’ll see you later, after the game, at my house, in my bed_. Alex is going to have to drop off Nadira and then sneak back out, but that’s doable. Nick’s going away again in a few days for the last roadie of the regular season and who knows if Nick will even have time to see him once playoffs have started. “Sure, yeah.”

Nick nods and wanders away, saying hello to Nadira and Harpy on the way down the hall.

Alex watches him go, now trying not to pay too much attention to how tight the rest of Nick’s clothes are. He shakes his head at himself and returns to Nadira and Harpy, who are currently exchanging business cards.

Harpy changes the topic when Alex joins them again, asking him about the rink and the peewee team, and Alex is happy to talk about the kids. Harpy probably doesn’t notice, but when Alex glances at Nadira, she’s standing next to them, smiling down at Harpy’s business card in her hand.


	75. playoffs, Chapter 15.1

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.1**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Per Coach Harrison: Jordan Grenier is day-to-day with a lower body injury. Hase was missing from practice due to illness. Currently no update on Yang.

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

You want the good news now? We’re one win away from clinching a playoff berth! #GoCardsGo

*

After nearly an entire season with the Cardinals, Connor knows most of the people in his media scrum. He knows Ellie, who works for Cards Insider, and Evan Wilkes from CTSN, and the Brown Suit, whose name he doesn’t want to remember, and he also recognizes Nadira’s boss, Brad. Most of the faces are familiar.

They put Connor on media duty after practice today. Nick and Yoshi as well. Nick already called it this morning; they’re playing against the Lions tomorrow, so it really was unavoidable.

“Connor, do you go into a game differently knowing that you have a chance to clinch a playoff spot?” is the first question that’s thrown at him by Brown Suit.

“Not really. You know, we’d want to win that game either way,” Connor says.

Evan Wilkes looks like he’s in pain, but he’s probably just trying not to show any emotions.

The reporter next to him clears her throat and says, “There’s a chance that you’ll be missing four players tomorrow, how does that affect the team?”

Connor sincerely hopes that they won’t be missing four players, but they’ll be missing three no matter how you look at it. Ty and Jordie are injured, and Ricky got suspended for two games, so they’ll definitely be missing the game. Bunny wasn’t at practice today because he’s sick, but he might be feeling better tomorrow. “We’ll have a lot of guys slotting into the line-up, obviously, so all we can do, really, is do our best to work together and win that game tomorrow.”

“You’ll likely have Christopher Wilson in goal for several games, will that affect the team’s defense?”

“I think we’ll still try to keep the puck away from him. He’s done a great job for us whenever he was in goal, so I don’t think anyone’s worried.”

“Your stats have also improved quite a bit since you were traded to the Cardinals, why do you think that is?”

“You know, that can have a lot of reasons, but I’m probably the wrong guy to ask.”

“Have there been any talks about a contract extension?” Evan Wilkes asks.

Connor looks up at him, confused for a moment. He’s not usually the guy who gets asked about contract extensions. In Colorado, he got asked why the defense was struggling, why it was so hard for them to stay in a playoff spot, why they weren’t working harder, what kept them from holding a lead, what kept going wrong for them over and over in the third period.

It feels strange to be on the other side of this.

“No, I think everyone’s pretty focused on making sure that we’ll get that playoff spot,” Connor says eventually.

“What are your thoughts on your time in Hartford so far?”

“Well, it’s obviously been great, getting to play with all these guys, you know? This is a great team, a great locker room to be part of, and we’re one win away from a playoff spot, so that’s pretty special.”

“Looking back, was there anything that surprised you when you came here?”

“Honestly, you always hear how welcoming the Cardinals are to new guys, but the guys really blew me away.” Connor laughs. “I think like five people offered me their guest room when I came into town the first time.” At that point Connor had already talked to Alex about staying at his place, though.

Thinking about it, it was probably self-preservation. Obviously he wanted something temporary because he was scared that he wouldn’t be around for too long, but staying at Alex’s also gave him a place where he’d be able to mope about being horrible and letting down his teammates. Far away from his actual teammates.

It’s almost funny how all of this turned out.

“That sounds like you wouldn’t be opposed to coming back to the Cardinals next season,” Evan Wilkes says.

Connor gives him a look, because that’s not actually a question, but he likes Evan Wilkes, who’s probably one of the most civil and objective guys in here, so he says, “It’s a good team to be on.”

It’s not a yes or a no. It’s too early to say and Evan Wilkes knows that, too. At this point, Connor is actually doing so well that he might get offers from a handful of other teams. Who knows? It really all depends on how playoffs end up going. Because they are getting that playoff spot. It’s more a matter of  _when_  rather than a matter of  _if_.

Connor sincerely hopes that they’ll beat the Lions tomorrow. Not just for the playoff berth. For Nick, too.

It looks like they’re wrapping up for now, because no one else seems to have anything else to ask when he looks around. Then Ellie clears her throat. “Connor, I saw that you went to the Panthers’ semifinal game last weekend. Are you rooting for them next Saturday?”

“Absolutely,” Connor says. “I wish I could go, but we’ll be on the road.” He’ll most likely be in a hotel room in DC. No, he’ll  _definitely_  be in a hotel room in DC. Watching that game. “Nick and I are still going to watch the game, though. Pretty sure we’ll have some people join us.”

Santa and Mikey won’t want to miss it. They were both at the semifinal game with them last weekend when the Panthers absolutely destroyed the Stars in a 6–1 win. Now they’re up against New York, who surprisingly beat Boston. Connor only knows that it was a surprise because Nadira completely lost it.

Nadira generally seems like she’s about to have a breakdown about hockey at any given moment these days. The New York Ravens still have a chance to slide into a wildcard spot if they don’t start losing game after game again.

Connor knows that there’s no  _easy_  opponent once playoffs roll around, and teams like the Ravens – if they do end up getting a playoff spot – often end up being more dangerous than teams who were doing well all season and marched into the playoffs without a hint of a struggle.

“Thank you, Connor,” Ellie says and the group of reporters around Connor starts to disperse.

A few seats over, Nick is still surrounded and everyone who was talking to Connor is now joining Nick’s media scrum, too. Connor almost feels bad for him now that he has a chance to listen to the questions he gets thrown his way. It’s mostly about the Lions, about how he feels seeing them struggle, clearly wanting him to talk shit about his former team, so they can put it like he’s glad not to be in LA anymore. Connor has no doubt that at least one of those guys would try to make Nick look like a huge ass, but Nick has it all under control, really, Connor is thoroughly impressed with how boring Nick’s answers are.

Even after almost an entire season with Nick on his team, Connor has absolutely no idea why the Lions traded him. He faintly remembers that the Lions said that they needed to make some changes to their lineup if they wanted to become a playoff contender again, but trading away a guy like Nick just didn’t make any sense. Sure, there were those rumors about drug problems and attitude issues, but everyone who’s ever met Nick knows that none of that is true. Maybe the Lions just didn’t want to deal with the rumors.

In any case, the Cardinals are lucky to have him.

And, as he looks around the room, it once again hits Connor how very lucky he is to have ended up here of all places. On a team where people were willing to give him an actual chance. On a team that wants him around and is proud of him.

A wet sock hits him in the face. “What are you smiling about?”

Connor shrugs. Right now, he’s smiling about a lot of things. And Santa’s wet sock might actually be one of them.

*

Nadira groans when the Ravens miss yet another scoring chance. Sarah reaches over to pat her thigh, gently dragging her thumb across Nadira’s skin before she pulls her hand away again to fiddle with her stress ball.

Sarah told Nadira to watch the Ravens game, because she’s not very good company tonight. Nadira even offered to stay away, because Sarah has her big game tomorrow, but Sarah did want company and Nessie already told her that she’d lock herself in her room the night before the finals if they made it that far.

Well. They did make it this far.

Sarah usually doesn’t have trouble focusing, but some games are bigger than others and no matter how many she plays, when there’s a Cup at stake, she still gets a little jittery. Mostly the night before. And on the way there. And while she’s putting on her gear. Once she’s on the ice, none of that matters anymore. It’s waiting for it, thinking about it, wondering what will happen that makes her nervous.

When she’s in her crease, she’s in her crease. Then all she has to do is play. And she knows how to play.

Sarah gives her ball another squeeze. It’s not even that she’s  _that_  nervous. The main reason she’s upset tonight has nothing to do with the game tomorrow. Nadira’s game goes into a commercial break and Nadira shoots her a quick look that’s accompanied by a faint smile.

Nadira came by after work; she’s coming to the game tomorrow, of course, but she’s not going to be there as Sarah’s girlfriend, she’s going to be there for her job. Alex and Ashley will be there, too. All her friends are coming. A bunch of her old teammates from Boston are driving down. Three girls from her college team have told her that they’ve bought tickets.

But her mom isn’t coming.

People Sarah hasn’t seen in years are going to be there to cheer her on, but her own mother didn’t care enough to take the day off.

And, sure, Sarah understands that her mom is a doctor who has patients and surgeries and all that, but even doctors can get a day off here and there. Sarah assumes that her mom didn’t even ask, because she didn’t want to go to Sarah’s game in the first place. Maybe she’s wrong about that, but it somehow makes her feel better if she has a reason to be angry. Because if she wasn’t angry, she’d have to be disappointed, and to Sarah that seems even worse.

The disappointment would, of course, be mutual, because her mom clearly isn’t happy with her life choices, but at least she hasn’t made any further comments. Sarah’s dad did mention that he’d take Sarah and Nadira out for dinner once the season was over – “I want to get to know that girlfriend of yours. I have to make sure she’s good enough for you, right?”

“Dad…”

“I’m kidding,” he said. “Mostly.”

Sarah only rolled her eyes at him because he wasn’t able to see her and then bid him a good night and hung up the phone.

She has a good feeling about her relationship with Nadira. And, okay, she also had a good feeling about her relationship with Nate. Things don’t get serious with someone if you don’t have a good feeling about them, but this is different. It felt different from the start. Nadira completely swept her off her feet. That’s never happened to her before.

Which is maybe a little sad.

Nadira thankfully doesn’t keep watching her and scoots off the bed once the second intermission starts. She returns with a bag of chips and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. The bag of chips ends up between them, close enough to Sarah that she could reach it easily if she wanted it. Nadira digs into what’s left of her chocolate ice cream with a happy hum.

Sarah watches her for a while, then she clears her throat.

Nadira looks over at her, expectant.

“My mom isn’t coming tomorrow,” Sarah says.

“Yikes,” Nadira replies. “I’m sorry. Does she have to… work?”

“I didn’t ask. My dad told me. Like, she didn’t even tell me herself. She’s barely even talked to me ever since…” Sarah shrugs.

“Ever since you told her about me,” Nadira finishes for her.

“It’s not about you.”

Nadira eats a spoonful of slowly melting ice cream, her eyes never leaving Sarah’s. “It sounds an awful lot like it is, though.”

“No, really, Nadi,” Sarah says, “it’s about me. And my choices. And me not being exactly the way that my mom wants me to be.”

“Which is what exactly?”

“Engaged to a Nate-like character, who’s making a lot of money in a job that makes him feel like he’s the most important guy in the room at all times, even though half of the people in the room would probably forget his name ten minutes after he told them.”

“That’s weirdly specific.”

“Well, I just know exactly what my mom wants for me,” Sarah says. Her mom wouldn’t want her to be in a relationship with someone who works irregular hours, because that’s bad for family life – she knows that first-hand, being a surgeon – and she wouldn’t want her to end up with someone involved in any kind of shady business. But the money has to be there, so it leaves guys like Nate.

That’s why Nate seemed like the ideal future husband to Sarah’s mom. Nate would make enough money to support them and Sarah could have, like, one and a half babies or whatever the average is these days.

Speaking of babies– “And,” Sarah adds, “there’s also the fact that she thinks she won’t be a grandmother if I end up marrying a woman.”

Nadira blinks at her. “Who said anything about getting married?”

“Oh, my mom mentions it all the time,” Sarah says. “It’s the ultimate life goal for her.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, and I don’t get that. Because she’s this amazing, intelligent woman who has this fantastic job and she’s come so far in her career, so I don’t understand why it’s so important to her that I get married.”

“Maybe she just wants to see you in a white dress.”

Sarah hums. She has no idea what exactly her mom’s thoughts are, and asking her would only bring on an argument. Sarah glances at Nadira, who turned her attention back to her ice cream and the intermission coverage when Sarah didn’t reply.

It’s not like Sarah doesn’t want to get married. As much as she wants to be a Disney princess, though, she doesn’t see herself in a white dress. She wants a suit. And a girl in a white dress.

Sarah turns her gaze away from Nadira and stares straight ahead until her eyelids start to flutter, the sounds of Nadira’s game lulling her to sleep. She wakes up for a moment when her stress ball is plucked from her fingers and a blanket is wrapped around her.

When she wakes up in the morning, she’s not sure if she has ever been this grumpy before a championship game or if she’s ever slept this well.


	76. playoffs, Chapter 15.2

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.2**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I’m not crying, you’re crying

*

Nadira feels like she’s about to explode.

She’s at the game, sitting with all the other reporters. It’s just her and a few others. CTSN is here, which is a bit of a surprise, because they usually don’t care that much about women’s hockey beyond a tweet or quick little article on their website here and there. Apparently this game will at least be on local TV, though, and Nadira has also spotted a station from New York to cover the Blaze.

Nadira is putting live updates on the  _Gazette’s_  website. Her fingers shake a little bit every time she posts another update. It’s all faceoffs and penalties and scoring chances and goals, and Sarah breathes out a sigh of relief whenever the whistle goes and she has a moment to take a breath.

Sarah was a brick wall in goal for the entire first period, which allowed the Panthers several great scoring chances. They went into the first intermission with a score of 0–2 in favor of the Panthers, but the Blaze caught up in the second period with two power play goals. In the last minute of the second period, the Panthers nearly score three times, but are always denied by the Blaze’s brick wall Henrietta Parker, who was one of Nadira’s personal heroes back in New York.

Truth be told, Henrietta Parker deserves this Cup so much that Nadira wouldn’t even be terribly mad if she ended up lifting it at the end of this game, but in the end she really wants nothing more than for Sarah to win tonight.  

When the horn sounds for the second intermission, the game is tied and Nadira feels like she hasn’t taken a proper breath in a much too long time. Nadira gives an update on the score and then leans back with a sigh. Her phone vibrates on the table as soon as all the players are off the ice.

 

**[Alex]**

_still alive?_

_Barely_ , Nadira replies.

From where she’s sitting, she can actually see Alex, Ashley and Jamie. And Sarah’s dad, who’s apparently become fast friends with Alex. He just handed him a beer and now they’re laughing about something.

The part of Nadira that isn’t excited about this particular part of her job really wants to be down there with her friends and talk to Frank Albright, who seems to be the most delightful guy on the planet. At least going by the look on Alex’s face.

Nadira is almost glad that Sarah’s mom isn’t here today. Because even if Sarah ends up lifting that trophy, Sarah’s mom wouldn’t  _really_  be proud of her. Nadira’s best guess is that Sarah’s mom never wanted her to play hockey in the first place. Nadira’s parents didn’t want her to play hockey either, it was always just street hockey for her, but Nadira doesn’t regret that she never had the chance to win a big shiny bowl or a medal. She likes where she ended up.

Like, in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe not the exact place and the exact job, but overall, Nadira is doing okay. That’s what matters. Maybe she’ll even stay at the  _Gazette_. Sure, she’s facing a long summer full of insignificant assignments that’ll rob her of all her joy, but then she can stay here, with Sarah.

If Sarah is staying.

Maybe she’ll sign with a different team, maybe she’ll retire. Who the hell knows what’ll happen?

Nadira stares at the Zamboni, like it’ll reveal the mysterious plans of the universe to her. It doesn’t.

Five minutes until the third period.

Nadira needs to take deep breaths and get ready for whatever is coming. If the Panthers get their offense into gear, this game will be theirs, but since they were up by two in the first, they slipped into defensive mode in the second and that just wasn’t enough. They needed to keep scorning. They need to score now.

Of course, the Panthers don’t give Nadira the early third period goal she so desperately wants.

The Blaze score six minutes into the third and the arena gets a little quieter.

Nadira updates the  _Gazette_ ’s live coverage with the new score. Sarah, over in her goal, doesn’t look rattled. Which is good. She shouldn’t be. It’s only one goal. The Panthers have fourteen minutes to tie up the game.

Nadira spends the next five of those fourteen minutes shifting around in her seat, updating her article with scoring chances and faceoffs. It’s a fast-paced game and Sarah makes save after save, nudging Alvarez from the Blaze away from her net after the Blaze’s latest scoring chance.

Alvarez shoves back and a moment later, Nessie is upon her to drag her away from Sarah. As Nessie skates away, Sarah says something to her and gives her a tap with her stick. Nadira wishes she could hear, but even if she was right down there, the crowd might have drowned out their voices. That little scuffle seems to have woken everyone up again and when Steph Conrad scores twenty seconds later, Nadira jumps up to cheer with the rest of the crowd.

Nadira sucks in a deep breath and sits back down.

Nine minutes on the clock.

All the Panthers have to do is score one goal.

And, sure, it works the other way around, too. Technically, all the Blaze have to do is score a goal as well.

But they don’t.

With four minutes on the clock, the game is still tied. Nadira is sweating like she’s one of the players, but that’s okay. It takes her all the willpower she can muster to keep herself from chewing on her lucky pen.

The funny thing is, she almost misses the goal the Panthers score with two minutes left in the game. It happens so fast, right off the faceoff, that Nadira can’t even tell who scored. The goal is eventually credited to Abigail Ronalds, who’s welcomed to the bench with a fierce hug from Nessie, who apparently isn’t inclined to let go of her teammate who just scored what could end up being the game winning goal.

It feels like it takes an hour for the final minute to start ticking down.

Once there are only sixty seconds left on the clock, Nadira just straight-up forgets how to breathe.

*

When the empty netter goes in on the other side of the ice, Sarah almost hurls her stick in the air. She’s 37 seconds away from a championship win and in those 37 seconds she can’t make a single mistake. When she makes a save a few seconds later, there’s some pushing and shoving behind her net. Sarah sighs at them. She wants this to end, no more goals, no more arguing, nothing else that’ll draw out this game.

As those last few seconds tick down, it feels like she’s in the net for another hour. It feels like they’ll never make it to zero, like she’ll have pucks thrown at her left and right for the rest of eternity.

The goal horn sounds and Sarah barely has time to prepare for Nessie jumping into her arms with a shout. She somehow manages to hurl away her gloves and to stay upright and then the rest of the team is joining them. Patty throws her arms around both of them and someone else bounces against them from the left. Sarah has completely lost track of who’s hugging her and she’s pretty sure that the goal is not actually behind them anymore.

Everyone’s screaming and Sarah is hugging whoever happens to be closest to her. It’s not the first time she’s won a championship. She’s won an actual Olympic medal. But it feels like this every single time. Like this is the best time. Like this is the  _only_  time you’ll ever feel this happy.

Sarah smiles. It’s nice to have this reminder that this feeling comes around again.

She remembers all of this from last time, the handshakes, being handed the Cup, only this time, after Patty lifts it up and has her turn with it, she doesn’t skate up to one of the alternate captains, but she comes over to Sarah with the biggest smile on her face.

“Wouldn’t be here without you,” Patty says as she hands over the Cup.

Sarah very nearly starts crying on the spot, but then she’s holding the Cup and she’s laughing  _and_ crying. As soon as she’s handed the Cup to Nessie, who takes off with a whoop, Sarah looks around for her dad. They’re letting everyone’s family members out on the ice, but before she can find a familiar face, Cassie Parker, the reporter who’s here for CTSN, waves her over for an interview.

“Sarah, can you tell us what you’re feeling right now?” Cassie asks.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Sarah says. “I’m so excited and I’m so happy for everyone on the team and the organization, they all deserve this so much.”

“How special was it to you that you were the second person to lift the Cup today?”

Sarah glances over at Bee as she hands off the Cup to Steph. “It was very special,” Sarah says. “Everyone on the team has been amazing.”

“Will we be seeing you back in the net for the Panthers next season?”

Sarah stares into the distance, at the stands. She’s pretty sure that she can see Ashley and Alex right behind the glass. “I, uh… At this point, I can’t really tell you what’s going to happen next for me. For now, I think we’ll just celebrate and enjoy this.”

“Thank you, Sarah.”

Sarah thanks her for having her and skates away. She’s quickly replaced by Nessie and Sarah is immediately distracted by her dad who comes up to her to hug her.

“I’m so proud of you,” he says. “But you already knew that.”

Sarah laughs and gives him a squeeze. She waves over Zoe and asks her to take a picture of them. “Zoe, did they let everyone with a press pass on the ice?”

Zoe nods and points across the ice before she hurries away. Nadira is over by the bench, interviewing Patty. Sarah waits for them to be done and then skates over with her dad in tow and Nadira is beaming at her when she sees her approach.

“Shit, Sarah,” Nadira says. “I’m technically here for work so I can’t… Well, whatever, come here.”

Nadira hugs her and Sarah has to bend down even more than usual.

“I’m so happy for you, babe,” Nadira says and holds up her phone. “You wanna give me some good quotes, so I can write my thing and send it in and go out partying with you guys?”

“Of course,” Sarah says. Nessie skates into her from the side and she laughs. “Sup, Ness.”

“Nadira, how do you feel about your girlfriend being an Isobel Cup champion?”

“It’s, uh…” Nadira grins, “pretty special.”

“Sure is,” Nessie gives Sarah a pat. “We need to take a picture of the two of you with the Cup.”

Nadira’s eyes go wide. “Ohh, can I touch it?”

“Only if you want to be cursed and never win it.”

“I love being cursed.”

“Helena,” Sarah’s dad says and pulls his phone out of his pocket, “will you take a picture of me and the girls?”

That almost makes Sarah cry faster than being handed the Cup second, but she does her best to swallow down those tears. Nadira also looks like she might burst into tears any moment now and is only putting on a brave face because she’s technically here for her job. Nadira makes Sarah’s dad promise that he’ll send her that picture – “I need it for my fridge, you know?”

“I’ll even print it out for you,” he says.

Nadira laughs and gives Sarah a wink and her hand a squeeze before she shuffles away to find herself a coach to talk to.

Nessie pulls Sarah with her to take another picture. It’s just that for a while – a picture here, a picture there, one with the Cup, a few without the Cup, then the Cup is back, then Alex, Ashley and Jamie are on the ice and she takes a picture with them, then Nadira swings by to say goodbye and promises she’ll be back soon.

Sarah kisses her before she leaves. They’ll have all night to celebrate.


	77. playoffs, Chapter 15.3

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.3**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

@panthersNWHL Captain and Isobel Cup Champion Patricia Perez will be dropping the puck at tonight’s game!

 

**Cardinals Insider**  @CardsInsider

The Grizzlies’ loss to the Eagles tonight prevents them from moving past the Cardinals in the standings, giving the Cardinals home ice advantage in the first round.

*

Alex slowly makes his way down the stairs to the locker rooms, makes sure everything is cleaned up so the cleaning crew has an easy job tomorrow morning, and then walks down the tunnel to the benches. This is his routine now, or at least on the days he closes up. When everyone’s gone, he comes down to Rink 2 to tell Nick to get the fuck off the ice.

Nick, obviously, is still shooting pucks at the net, completely lost in his own world. Alex watches him for a few minutes, but eventually gets impatient and grabs the empty bucket that’s sitting on the bench. He climbs over the boards, which is when Nick finally notices him.

“Oh.”

“Time to go,” Alex says and starts picking up pucks.

Nick sticks out his bottom lip. “Five more minutes?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you–”

Alex rolls his eyes at him. “ _No_.”

“You have no sympathy whatsoever,” Nick grumbles.

Alex walks over to him and gently takes away his stick. Nick has been grumpy all day and Alex knows why. It’s a little funny, actually. “They benched you for the last game of the season, that’s a perfectly normal thing for them to do. They benched Yoshi. They benched Jordie. Everyone who matters isn’t playing tomorrow. Stop being a baby.”

Nick makes a face. “You stole my stick.”

Alex is pretty sure that it can’t be called stealing if Nick just let him take it. “I’m gonna sell it on ebay.” He hands Nick the bucket and takes the stick properly. He finds himself a puck and picks it up with the stick to throw it into the bucket.

“Just put on skates,” Nick says.

Alex hands back the stick. “Not tonight.”

“Why not?”

Alex presses his lips together.

“Alex, come on,” Nick says. “Just tell me.”

With this kind of thing, Alex doesn’t even know where to start. If he’s honest with himself, he knows he could put on skates right now and he’d probably be just fine. Sure, he couldn’t play a 60-minute game, he couldn’t, not even if he trained for a hundred years. There’s no going back to that, but he could skate a few laps around the rink.

Nick reaches out to him. “Hey.”

Alex does realize that he’s being overdramatic and Nick looks genuinely concerned, so Alex gently shakes off his hand. “It’s not that I don’t want to skate,” Alex says. “And… they told me I could. I just can’t go back to playing the way I used to. I wouldn’t make it through a single shift. But just skating? Honestly, it’d probably be just fine. For a while, at least.”

“But?”

“It’s not the same.”

“It’s not,” Nick agrees. “And does that make all the difference?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

Nick hums.

“I guess I…” Alex shakes his head. “I’m too scared to find out.”

“So you just keep pushing it off?”

“Yeah.” Alex knows that he can’t keep pushing it off for much longer, but he’s definitely not putting on skates tonight.

Nick shakes his head at him and gives him a tap with his stick. “Get your Zamboni, Alex. Let’s go home.”

Alex laughs and shuffles away. “That almost sounds like you want me to drive you home on the Zamboni.”

“Would you?”

Alex flips him off over his shoulder.

*

“Hey, babe, how’d your meeting go?” Nadira asks, then kisses Sarah before she has a chance to reply. “Off the record, obviously.”

Sarah smiles at her and pulls at the seat belt for the passenger seat. “It was good,” she says. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Sure,” Nadira says and pulls away from the curb.

Sarah doesn’t miss the curious glance that Nadira shoots her before she forces her eyes back on the road.

“They offered me two years,” Sarah says.

Nadira hits the breaks a little too hard at the next intersection. “ _Two_  years?”

“Yeah. I don’t have to take it. They’re happy to offer me a one-year extension, too, if that’s what I want.”

Nadira is quiet for a moment and then says, “And  _is_  that what you want?”

“I don’t know.”

Nadira hums.

“I need some time to think about it,” Sarah says. They’re not that far into the offseason. Sarah got a call from the DC Stars’ management only a few days ago, too, but she wasn’t going to talk to them until she’d heard the Panthers’ offer.

“Makes sense,” Nadira says. She knows that the Stars have given her a call.

Not that Sarah is seriously considering moving to DC. The only reason she signed with the Panthers was because it took her closer to home and she could spend some time with her grandpa and the rest of her family. Nothing about that has changed.

The choice it’ll come down to in the end is probably between re-signing with the Panthers or retiring for good and looking into getting one of those coaching jobs at East Harbor, which is also what she tells Nadira.

“What about the Stars?”

“I’m not moving to DC,” Sarah says.

“What if they… make you the best offer ever?”

Sarah looks over at her. “Would  _you_  want to move to DC?”

“I, uh… I’d be going with you?” Nadira asks.

“I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking,” Sarah says slowly. “Would you want to come with me? Would you stay here?”

Nadira chews on her bottom lip. “Would that affect your decision?”

“I… Maybe?” Sarah has no idea where this conversation is going. It’s really not a car conversation. They need more time to talk about this and they’re on their way to Alex’s house now to watch the Cardinals’ first away game in this series. It’s Game 3. They’ve won one and lost one, so everything’s on the table.

“I think…” Nadira says and her voice starts to take on that slightly unsure tone. “I think you should decide what’s best for you. Without anyone else telling you what to do.”

“But–”

“We’ll figure the rest out when you’ve made your decision.”

“Are you sure?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t want to lose Nadira over this. And she really doesn’t want to go to DC so much; she wants to stay here, but Nadira hates the job she has here, so where does that leave them?

“I’m sure,” Nadira says.

“I don’t think I’m gonna be able to decide overnight,” Sarah says. “Give me some time to think about it, okay?”

Nadira nods. “Okay.” She clears her throat and points behind her. “I bought chips, dip, and sour gummy worms.”

“Excellent.”

“I got the cheese dip that Alex likes.”

“He made grilled cheese in the break room kitchen at the rink the other day. They were amazing.”

“Sometimes I’m convinced that Alex is, like, ninety-five percent cheese.”

“What’s the other five percent?” Sarah asks.

Nadira hesitates for a moment, then she says, “Chocolate chip cookies.”

Sarah isn’t surprised when she finds a bowl full of Alex’s famous chocolate chip cookies on his living room table. Ashley and Jamie are already there when Saran and Nadira arrive – Jamie is on the floor, petting Byron, and Ashley is cradling a bowl of popcorn to her chest.

Alex is in his armchair, waving at them when they come into the living room. “Right on time,” he says and nods at the TV, where the pregame coverage has just started.

“Awesome,” Nadira says. She dumps her bag full of snacks on the table, next to a bunch of pizza cartons and pulls Sarah onto the couch with her.

Alex peers into the bag. “Is that cheese dip?”

“Just for you.”

Alex’s lips twitch. “Thank you.”

Sarah grabs a few slices of pizza and then fishes the gummy worms out of the bag during the anthem and proceeds to eat half the bag while the first five minutes of the game are on. Because it’s five absolutely ridiculous minutes. Yoshi scores the first goal of the game 28 seconds after the opening face-off. The Grizzlies answer almost immediately, a minute and nine seconds into the game. A Grizzlie gets called for boarding no twenty seconds later and Viktor Eriksson is slow to get up after. He eventually gets off the ice with a little help, but they take him straight down the tunnel. Nadira shows her a tweet not too much later that says that Eriksson won’t return to the game.

“Crap,” Sarah says. “He’s one of their best wingers.”

“Eriksson?” Alex asks.

Sarah nods.

“Concussion?”

“They’re not saying,” Nadira mutters.

Sarah is lucky enough to only have had one concussion in her career, way back in college, and it was a mild one. She feels terrible for everyone who gets pulled with a concussion, but it’s even worse when it’s Viktor Eriksson, who was out with a concussion for almost half a season three years ago.

The game is wild from start to finish. The score at the end of the second period is 4–3 in favor of the Cardinals, and they go into the break with over a minute left on a 4-on-4 thanks to a fight behind the Cardinals’ net.

“Wow, this is so fucking stressful,” Ashley says. “I need to eat something right now.”

“More pizza?”

“Hand me the cookies.”

Sarah does take another slice of pizza. Somehow watching her friends’ playoff game is stressing her out more than playing in her own team’s playoff games did. Or maybe it was just a different kind of stress.

The third starts about the same way that the second ended – with dirty plays and a lot of post-whistle bullshit. With five minutes left on the clock and the Grizzlies down by two, another fight starts next to Jordie’s net when Travers gives Jordie a shove and Santa swoops in to defend him. Schneider tries to get involved, which Connor doesn’t like and then everyone’s trying to get a piece of  _someone_.

“Nick needs to get out of there,” Nadira says.

Warren tries to get involved in Connor’s and Schneider’s fight before they’ve even started.

“Hey, two-on-one isn’t fair,” Ashley shouts.

“Holy shit, look at Nick.”

Nick has skated up behind them and has grabbed Warren by the back of his jersey. Warren has at least a few inches on Nick, but Nick somehow manages to pull him off Connor.

“Wow, I love him,” Nadira says.

Alex is staring at the TV, eyes wide, maybe a little impressed.

Warren gives Nick a shove, but Nick only stares him down, totally unbothered.

The whole thing ends with two Grizzlies and a Cardinal in the box, which allows the Cardinals to score yet another power play goal. It’s Nick who scores, because– “Of course it’s him,” Nadira says. “Look at him, it’s unreal.”

Jamie whistles. “Not that I know a lot about hockey, but that was  _nice_.”

“I’m so glad that your wedding is after the Awards,” Nadira says. “I’m so mad that he only got that one nomination, though. I mean, okay, the Lady Byng is nice, but… the Art Ross would be  _hella_ nice.”

“There are a bunch of people between him and the Art Ross,” Alex says. “He’s definitely gonna win the Lady Byng, though.

“Yeah,” Nadira says.

“How many penalty minutes does he have?” Sarah asks.

“Eight,” Alex replies.

Sarah frowns at him. “Do you just have his stats memorized?”

Alex, his cheeks turning faintly pink, shrugs. “That’s not a weird thing to know.”

“Yeah, it is,” Sarah says, but she’s used to hanging out with people who know the most ridiculous things about hockey. “Just as weird as Nadira knowing how many goals Yoshi scored this season–”

“39.”

“–and how many times their backup goalie started–”

“34.”

“–and I’m gonna stop now, because I think I made my point,” Sarah concludes, shaking her head. “You’re huge nerds, both of you.”

*

Alex’s car is in the garage when Nick parks his own. He gave him a garage opener, just in case. He doesn’t want anyone to notice Alex’s car and put two and two together. He’s pretty sure that his neighbors don’t care and just want to be left alone, much like he does, but he can’t help it. Alex doesn’t seem to mind.

Nick goes in through the garage door and Alex is waiting for him in the hallway, Emily cuddled against his chest.

“Hey,” Nick says.

“Hey,” Alex says. “Good game.”

Nick smiles at him. “Hey, you,” he says and reaches out to scratch Emily’s head, then he gives Alex a nudge. “You waited up.”

Alex shrugs.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Well,” Alex says and gently sets down Emily, “I wanted to.”

Nick can’t help but grin. He steps closer to Alex and tilts up his head to kiss him.  

They stand in the hallway for a moment, Alex’s hands warm on his back, Nick’s eyes closed. He sighs and lets his head drop against Alex’s chest. This was Game 5. One more win, and they’re going to the next round. He sincerely hopes that they’ll win the next one, so they’ll get a bit of a break. Nick is about ready to pass out.

“Do you need me to carry you to bed?” Alex asks.

Nick laughs. “I’d like to see you try.” He looks up and nudges Alex’s jaw with his nose. “Hey…”

“Hm?”

Nick curls his fingers around Alex’s neck to pull him down for a kiss. When he got back from the two game roadie for Games 3 and 4 against the Grizzles, Nick crawled into bed and then almost wanted to get out again two minutes later to drive to Alex’s. Then he realized that Nadira and Connor would notice. He wasn’t going to ask Alex to come over the other day because it was the middle of the night, but today he gave Alex tickets for the game and asked him to come over afterwards.

He thought Alex would be waiting for him in bed, but he’s actually glad that he’s still awake. Nick didn’t get a lot of chances to kiss Alex recently. This is what playoffs are like. It’s constant exhaustion, and everything hurts, and every second on the ice means everything, every move has to be perfect. It’s the best time of the year.

Alex’s hand finds its way into Nick’s hair, pulling gently, then he dips his head down to kiss Nick’s neck.

“I missed you,” Nick says, and Alex stills for a moment, and Nick can feel him smile against his skin. “Thanks for coming over.”

“Of course,” Alex says. He stands upright and carefully brushes a strand of hair out of Nick’s face. “Do you need anything?”

“Yeah, I need to put ice on my shoulder.”

Alex purses his lips. “Nicky…”

“It’s nothing.”

“Really?”

“I promise, it’s just a bruise,” Nick says.

“That check towards the end of the second?” Alex asks, because of course he saw that and drew the right conclusions.

“Yeah.”

“If I figured that out, the Grizzlies–”

“I know,” Nick says and takes Alex by the hand to drag him into the kitchen with him. “I’ll be careful.”

“Oh, shut up,” Alex grumbles. He pulls open the freezer door and hands Nick an icepack. Then he opens the fridge and glares at its contents. “You need more crap in your fridge.”

“Crap.”

“Yeah.”

“Feel free to put whatever you want in my fridge,” Nick says and tries to somehow press the icepack against his shoulder without contorting his arm too much, but it’s not really working.

Alex watches him, a bag of shredded mozzarella in hand, eating cheese with an unimpressed look on his face.

“Really?” Nick asks.

“What?”

“Shredded mozzarella?”

“What’s wrong with mozzarella? It was in  _your_  fridge, so you must like it.”

“Yeah, but I don’t eat it  _like that_.”

Alex shrugs.

Nick starts fiddling with his icepack again until Alex huffs at him, puts away his cheese, and takes Nick and his icepack upstairs with him. He gets a towel from Nick’s bathroom and sits down on the bed, leaning against the headboard, still holding the towel.

“Come ‘ere,” Alex says and gets Nick settled between his legs, the icepack now right where Nick wanted it, trapped between his back and Alex’s chest.

Nick doesn’t even try to keep his eyes open. “I’m going to fall asleep like this.”

“That’s okay,” Alex says and kisses the top of his head. “One more win, hm?”

“No, thirteen.”

Alex laughs. “Yeah, guess you have a point there. Thirteen it is.”

They fall silent and Nick listens to Alex’s breathing for a while, humming in approval when Alex starts running his knuckles down his arm.

“Hey, Nicky?”

“Hm?”

“I need to talk to you about something. And I realize that this is the worst time to talk about anything, but–”

Nick tries to sit up, but Alex pulls him back down.

“Just stay right there,” Alex says. “It’s not a big deal.”

“So tell me?”

“Yeah, so that’s the thing, I… There’s something… that I don’t want to tell you about. It has nothing to do with you and I just don’t want to tell anyone until I know how it plays out. Do you think that’d be okay with you? I figured I’d tell you that there’s something I’m not telling you rather than just… lie. I don’t wanna lie.”

“You’re okay, right?” Nick asks.

“I’m totally fine.”

Nick would lie if he said that he doesn’t want to know what kind of mystery thing Alex is hiding from him, but Alex is allowed to have secrets. “I guess it’s okay,” Nick says. “Will you tell me eventually?”

“That’s the plan,” Alex says.

“Okay.”

“Thank you, Nicky.”

“Are you gonna rob a bank?”

“I really don’t need to rob a bank,” Alex says softly. “Go to sleep, okay?”

“Only if you go to sleep, too.”

“I will, I promise,” Alex says.

Nick doesn’t know if Alex keeps his promise, because he falls asleep about five seconds later.

Alex is still fast asleep when Nick wakes up in the morning. He turns off his alarm and stays in bed with Alex as long as he can, just staring for a little while. Alex’s lips are parted slightly and Nick almost wants to lean over to kiss him, but he doesn’t want to wake him up.

No matter how playoffs turn out for them, this year Nick isn’t dreading the summer.


	78. playoffs, Chapter 15.4

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.4**

 

*

 **ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

We’re ready for Round 2! Are you? Tweet us your watch party pics and we’ll pick 10 lucky winners to join us at Games 1 and 2. Use our hashtag #GoCardsGo

*

“I should head home,” Alex says with a glance at the kitchen clock. It’s late and Nick looks dead tired.

Nick glances at him, hair hanging into his eyes. Somehow Alex already knows what’s coming. All Nick has to do is look at him like that and Alex understands without him having to say a word. Nick clears his throat and steps closer. “Can you stay?”

“Yeah,” Alex says. He’ll always stay if that is what Nick wants. He’s not exactly worried that Connor and Nadira will figure them out, because Connor doesn’t know that Alex never goes anywhere when the Cardinals are out of town and Nadira spends so much time at Sarah’s that she’s barely ever home either. Which is why Nick could easily spend the night at Alex’s now and then if he wanted to. Well. If they told Waldo, that is. “Nicky?”

Nick, leaning against him, hums, his fingers slowly trailing down the row of buttons on Alex’s shirt. Alex carefully brushes Nick’s hair out of his face, so he can actually look at him, but Nick’s eyes are closed, eyelashes fluttering at Alex’s touch. “Hm… I’m sorry that I keep asking you to stay.”

“Have you thought about, I don’t know… telling Waldo? About us? Nadi is at Sarah’s all the time, so you could stay over at my place and–”

“No.” Nick pulls away, suddenly wide awake again. “Alex. No. Seriously.”

“Okay,” Alex says, “it was just a suggestion.”

Nick shakes his head. “I can’t.” He takes a step back. “No one can know. Alex. Promise you won’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.” Alex reaches out and pulls Nick back against him, because he looks like he’s about to freak out on him because of this.

It was an innocent enough suggestion. He just thought that telling Connor might make things easier for both of them and he trusts Connor, there’s no way he’d ever tell anyone. Alex understands how Nick feels about this, though. If the wrong person were to find out about them– Alex wasted a handful of sleepless nights on it in college. Even before that.

He knew he’d be lying to everyone his entire life. He’d never have what all the other guys had. Girlfriends who came to games and to team events, pictures of vacations to share on Instagram. From the start, Alex was very well aware that it wouldn’t work like that for him. His plan was that he’d date a girl here and there, just to keep up pretenses, then he’d claim that hockey was more important. That was the only thing his dad never gave him any grief about. He let Alex put hockey first in that case, was proud of him for it.

Nick buries his face in Alex’s shirt and lets out a shuddering sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey… I get it…” Alex says and pulls him close.

He talked to Matt about it once, when Matt was curled up in his bed, sheets barely covering him, because he’d been too lazy to do anything other than give them a half-hearted tug. It was sometime in January and it was snowing outside. Matt flinched every time he heard the floorboards creak outside Alex’s door, even though the door was locked and no one would have ever questioned why Matt was hanging out in Alex’s room.

“What do you think it’ll be like?” Matt asked. “You know, when we’re both playing in the NHL and we can’t…” He glanced at Alex.

“Not like this,” Alex replied. He was already mourning what they had back then. Those late nights when Matt snuck into this room, lazy afternoons when they didn’t have classes and ended up lounging on Alex’s bed, their clothes slowly but surely disappearing, all those kisses behind closed door, their hands brushing against each other, casually, like it meant nothing, all those smiles shared like secrets. He wouldn’t have any of that. He’d trade it all for his career.

Nick did the same thing. He gave it all up to play, although Alex isn’t sure if you can give something up when you never really had it in the first place.

Sometimes Alex forgets that this is the first time that Nick let someone in.

Nick’s shoulders start to shake when Alex pulls him closer and Alex doesn’t really know what to do with him, so he just holds him and hopes that it’s enough, even though he knows that it isn’t. Nothing can ever make it go away, that persistent fear that someone could find out, that someone could use that secret against you, and the constant anger, because no matter how good you are, no matter how valuable you are to your team, that secret hangs over your head and it could destroy everything at any given moment.

It dawns on him then, how they ended up here. Or, he should say, how Nick ended up here.

“They found out, didn’t they?” Alex asks. “The Lions’ management? And then they traded you?”

“I told them,” Nick whispers and it’s followed by a quiet sob. “I thought they’d… I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know. Guess they thought it wasn’t worth the risk. Would be a PR disaster, right? First gay player. Who wants to deal with that?”

“Were you gonna…”

“No.” Nick wipes at his nose. “It just slipped out, like, whenever I think about that meeting, I can’t even remember how it happened, I don’t think I said it directly, but it was implied. It was stupid, I shouldn’t have said anything. You know, I could tell immediately that they weren’t…” He takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

“No, hey,” Alex says. He kisses the top of Nick’s head. “You don’t have to apologize to me. You don’t have to…” He pulls away, just a little, just so he can look Nick in the eyes. He wipes a tear off Nick’s cheek. “You don’t have to hide, not with me.”

Nick slowly lets out a breath.

“Nicky?”

“Let’s go to bed, okay?” Nick says.

Alex nods. Nick needs to get some rest and Alex feels bad for bringing up telling Waldo today when Nick was exhausted already. This definitely didn’t help.

Nick tugs at Alex’s shirt. “I think I got snot on your shirt.”

“Whatever, I’ll borrow one of yours.”

Alex ushers Nick up the stairs and gets him tucked into bed. He steals one of Nick’s shirts out of his closet and then climbs into bed with him. He can’t shake the feeling that he should say something, because it’s technically his fault that this evening turned into a massive shitshow.

He reaches out and finds Nick’s hand under the covers. “I’m sorry,” Alex says.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“Alex.”

“You already have so much going on,” Alex says, “and you didn’t need this on top of everything else and I’m sorry.”

“Feel better now?” Nick asks drily.

Alex chews on his bottom lip. “I’m sorry,” he says again.

Nick squeezes his hand and then pulls at his arm until it’s wrapped around him. “There.” He breaths in and out very carefully for a minute or two. “It’s not that I don’t trust Waldo.”

“It’s okay, Nicky, you don’t have to explain anything,” Alex mutters.

“I know he wouldn’t mind. And he wouldn’t say anything,” Nick goes on, ignoring Alex. “I don’t know why I feel like it’d be the end of the world if I told him.”

“It’s because… that’s just what it feels like. It’s what I felt like when I told you. It’s what I feel like every time. Even now that I have literally nothing to lose. It just won’t go away.”

Alex wonders if it’s like this for everyone. He sure as hell hopes it’s not. He’s never asked Finn if he was ever scared of telling anyone. Finn doesn’t seem like he’s ever been scared of anything.

Gently, Alex gives Nick’s side a squeeze. “I’ve been telling people. About me. Not you. I don’t usually mention… I mean, a bunch of people know that I’m seeing someone, but they don’t know who it is. It’s just that people have been wondering where I was disappearing to.”

Nick hums.

“Do you want me to stop?” Alex asks.

“Stop?”

“Stop telling people.”

“I’d never ask you to do that,” Nick says.

“You don’t have to ask me. I’m offering. I don’t want to make things harder for you.”

“I’m serious, Alex. Tell whoever you want to tell. Because I don’t want to make things harder for you either.”

“I was in the closet my entire life, so–”

“Yeah, but now you don’t have to be anymore. Don’t walk back in for me.”

“I would, though.”

“Well, I  _hate_  that you would.”

“Oh,” Alex only says. Seems like he just can’t say the right things tonight. He almost wants to go home, but he’s not bailing now. That’s usually his strategy. When things get uncomfortable, he leaves.

He can’t do that with Nick. Because, well… it’s Nick.

“Go to sleep,” Nick says.

“You go to sleep.”

“I…” Nick gives his wrist a squeeze. “Are we okay?”

“Of course we are,” Alex replies.

He doesn’t go to sleep right away, but at least he stays.

*

“Well done, Sammy, I’ll see you in the group lesson next Monday.”

Ashley picks up her phone to see if Jamie has texted her yet, but it looks like he’s still at work. They’re maybe, possibly going out for dinner tonight, because date night didn’t happen last week and Ashley wants her date night, goddammit. She  _deserves_  that date night.

It might just not be tonight, because Jamie said he had a bunch of errands to run after school and Ashley is teaching a group class once public skate starts. She’s closing up tomorrow and Jamie is invited to a boys’ night at this friend’s house the day after, though, so she’s hoping that tonight will work out.

Ashley packs up her stuff and almost walks into Alex. She has no idea when he snuck up on her, but she had absolutely no idea that he was there, which is why she’s pretty sure that she’d always be the first person to get murdered in a horror movie.

“Jesus, fuck,” Ashley says. She sucks in a deep breath. “Wasn’t expecting you.”

Alex usually doesn’t come down here to watch; figure skating isn’t exactly his thing. If you find him watching anything just for fun, it’ll be hockey practice. And usually he just takes the shortcut to the Zamboni.

“Sorry,” Alex says.

Ashley has a hard time reading the look on his face. It’s almost funny, because she’s known Alex for such a long time, but sometimes she has absolutely no idea what’s going on in his brain. She raises her eyebrows at him. “What’s up?”

Alex clears his throat. “How’s it going?”

“Good,” Ashley says, but it comes out sounding like a question. Something’s off. “Everything okay?”

“Sure. Yeah. I need to, uh…” He nods at the Zamboni door. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Wait,” Ashley says and catches him by the arm. Alex came down here to talk to her about something, she’s figured out that much at least, and now it looks like Alex is, what, trying not to inconvenience her? “What’s going on? Do you need me to cover a shift for you or anything? Because–”

“No, it was… nothing work-related. Never mind, I should…”

“Alex,” Ashley says and makes sure that all the gruffness is gone from her voice. “Just ask?”

“It’s not so much something I want to ask you,” Alex says. “More something I want to tell you.”

“Okay?” Ashley waits a moment, then she adds, “Actually, if this has anything to do with the wedding, you should tell me later, especially if it’s bad news, because I thought I’d get one day without wedding bullshit, so I need to mentally prepare.”

“No, it’s not… Ash?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry.”

Ashley narrows her eyes at him. “What did you do?”

With a sigh, Alex leans against the boards. “It’s more about what I didn’t do.” He actually looks vaguely guilty. It’s a strange look on him. “I should have told you this a long time ago, and I guess I just felt worse about it the longer I waited, which I why I never ended up saying anything…” He shakes his head. “The point is, I just wanted to tell you that I’m, uh… I’m seeing a guy.”

Ashley only stares at him for a moment, because whatever the hell she was expecting him to say, this definitely wasn’t it. She never even considered that Alex would ever turn out to be anything but straight. She just thought he wasn’t one for relationships in general. With everything he’s been through, it wouldn’t have surprised her. She has no idea how to react to this, so she just ends up saying, “Okay.”

Because maybe sometimes she can’t read Alex very well, but this is a guy who runs away from simple conversations with his dad and won’t touch anything that might bring on any sort of conflict with a 10-foot pole, so she feels like a simple answer is probably exactly what Alex needs.

Alex nods.

Ashley nods, too.

Alex likely wants her to stay out of his business, because he wants  _everyone_  to stay out of his business, but she wouldn’t be her if she didn’t ask at least one question or two.

“Is he nice?” Ashley asks.

“He is.”

“And is he…” Ashley smirks, “hot?”

Alex laughs. “Oh, yeah.”

“Do I know him?”

“I don’t think you’ll meet him any time soon,” Alex says. He doesn’t look like it bothers him. “Sorry. It’s complicated.” But when he says it, it doesn’t  _sound_  like it’s complicated. It sounds like he knows exactly where he wants to be and where he’s going. It sounds like he has everything under control, even though it’s complicated.

“Oh,” Ashley says. “Well, if you want to invite him to the wedding… Just let me know, okay? It really wouldn’t be a problem.”

Alex nods. “Thanks, Ash, but it’ll just be me.”

Again, Ashley nods back at him.

“Anyway, I should get the rink ready for the public skate.”

“Sure.”

Ashley lets him go. She almost wants to ask why he told her now, after not telling her for such a long time, but she feels like she already knows the answer. She found that answer for herself, too, when she suddenly felt like she needed to change something about her life and started looking for college courses.

It’s simple, really. People change. People  _grow_.

And that’s all there is to it.


	79. playoffs, Chapter 15.5

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.5**

 

*

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Maybe the 2nd period didn’t go as planned, but we still have 20 minutes of hockey left to play! #GoCardsGo

*

Connor allows himself a quick glance at the clock as they line up for a faceoff.

Three minutes and fourteen seconds.

They’re three minutes and fourteen seconds away from a second round exit. The score is 4–3. Jordie is likely about to get pulled for an extra skater. They just need to score a goal. Manage to make it to overtime.

These things happen. It’s not over until the horn sounds, and a lot can happen in three minutes and fourteen seconds.

That’s why they’re here today.

If they’d lost Game 6, this round would already be over. They made it here, because things do happen in the last three minutes of a game, but last time they only needed one goal to force this game without any overtime.

They’re here because of Connor. It’s funny that, for once, he knows that he did this, because he was the one who scored the game winner. It was a pass from Rivs, they were all camped out in front of the goal, trying to get a clear shot, and Connor saw an opening and just let it fly.

Looking back, he can’t tell if it was luck or precision. He did aim for the upper left corner, but the puck also bounced off the crossbar, so who knows if it was him or the crossbar who did most of the work.

Whatever it was,  _he_  did that.

Nick skated up to him after that goal and hugged him for at least a minute, the other guys crowding around them, patting Connor’s head and screaming right into his ears. It was the best goal of his life.

Alex printed out a picture of that group hug and put it on the fridge.

That night, Connor’s media scrum was bigger than Yoshi’s. Everyone on the team patted his back after the game and there were quite a few hair-ruffles and even more hugs.

Today, to win this round, it’ll take more than one goal. One goal might take them into overtime, but that’s far from a win. There is a chance that they’re only two goals away from Conference Finals, but right now they’re also three minutes and fourteen seconds away from a Round 2 exit. On home ice.

They’re trying hard to make the best of these last three minutes. Nick so very nearly scores towards the end of his shift, but he eventually returns to the bench with the rest of his line, looking grumpy.

Connor and Santa also skate back to the bench before the next faceoff. It was a long shift for them and Connor isn’t exactly in the mood for a fourth period of hockey – that would be the third game in this series heading into overtime. He’s exhausted, but if it’ll take them into the next round, Connor is going to power through somehow. They all will. But they need to make it there first.

Coach sends them out there again soon enough, but this time they don’t get a miracle like last time. The Cardinals’ net is empty and the Comets score with 36 seconds left. Connor doesn’t stop believing in a win until there’s no time left on the clock, because everything else would feel like jinxing it somehow, but he has to admit that scoring two goals in that little time is almost impossible.

They’re quiet on the bench as the timer runs down. They’re quiet as they skate up to Jordie to tell him that he did the best he could. Nick gives Jordie a long hug, then he waits for Connor to give Jordie’s head a pat and wordlessly gives him a hug, too, before they line up for the handshakes. Most of their fans have stuck around, still cheering when they raise their sticks in a salute to them. Connor supposes they’re lucky that way.

He gets put on media duty and it really doesn’t feel as good as it did after Game 6, but that’s part of playing, too. It’s never win after win. He makes it through the questions somehow, tries to give answers that won’t bring on  _more_  questions, and is indescribably glad when no one tries to talk to him on his way to the showers.

They’ll all have to deal with exit interviews, probably the day after tomorrow, but Connor doesn’t want to think about that yet.

Their season just ended but it hasn’t sunken in yet.

Connor gave Nick a ride to the game tonight, so he also gives him a ride back home. They don’t say much in the car, just a few mumbles about the game before they fall silent again.

When he’s dropped off Nick, Connor starts heading home, but he ends up going past the driveway. Connor can see the lights through the trees, which means someone’s still up and Connor is almost sure that Alex and Nadira would stay out of his way and would leave him be, but he’s not a hundred percent sure, so he keeps driving.

There’s a small burger place, a tiny hole in the wall, between Alex’s house and their practice rink in Silver Lakes. Connor sometimes stopped there with a bunch of the guys. No one ever recognized them, or at least they pretended that they didn’t know who they were, so Connor decides to head there now. It’s Friday night and they’re open until 2. There are a nightclub and a few bars close-by, but the place is pretty much empty when Connor walks in.

Some people are milling about, waiting for their orders, but there’s only two tables inside, so pretty much everyone who is around is either sitting on the wooden tables outside or already wandering away, searching for the next place to stop at for a drink.

Connor gets a burger with cheese and bacon and two extra pickles, garlic fries and a chocolate milkshake, because it doesn’t matter tonight. He’s pretty sure that one of the guys behind the counter shoots him a look that says,  _I know your team just lost Game 7_ , but he doesn’t say anything to Connor.

Connor stuffs a twenty dollar bill in the tip jar because no one bugged him and takes his burger and fries and milkshake outside and sits down at a table as far from the entrance as possible, facing away from all the other tables, staring into the distance, and starts shoving garlic fries into his mouth.

He’s just about to take a bite of his burger when someone clears their throat next to him.

Connor looks up and finds Helena Ness standing next to his table, a tray with a burger and a milkshake in hand.

“I like company after losses,” Nessie says. “But no teammates. Never teammates. It’s just… too gloomy. Sulky. Anyway. I just figured I’d ask? If you want company?”

Connor frowns at her. He’s honestly not sure if he does, but maybe it’s not so bad to have someone sitting across from him, eating a burger, saying very little. He considers Nessie’s burger and– “What do you have on there?”

Nessie laughs. “Yeah, so, this place sells mac and cheese burgers.”

“Mac and cheese burgers,” Connor echoes.

“They’re amazing.” She tilts her tray so he can see. “It’s a burger, but instead of a slice of cheese it has… mac and cheese.”

“That sounds disgusting.”

Nessie shrugs, clearly not bothered.

Connor nods at the empty seat across from him. “Have a seat.”

“Thanks,” Nessie says and flops down. “I won’t talk about the Carolina Comets if that makes you feel better.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

Nessie nods. “Figured.” She takes a bite of her burger and some of the mac and cheese drops out of it. “Ah, fuck’s sake.”

Connor snorts at her. “Here, you want some fries?”

“Sure,” Nessie says and takes a couple.

They eat in silence and Connor is actually starting to feel comfortable sitting here. No one cares that he’s here, no one’s asking him any questions, no one wants him to perform some sort of miracle. It dawns on him that Nessie knows exactly how he feels right now. She’s lost games before. Big games. Important games.

Connor doesn’t even want to check his phone right now. Anyway, at this point no one will expect him to reply. It’s late.

He frowns at Nessie. “What are you doing here so late?”

“I’m having a crisis,” Nessie says nonchalantly.

“What kinda crisis?”

“A big one.” Nessie nods at her burger. “I was hungry and we had no food.”

“Oh. Yeah. Terrible crisis.”

“Yeah, I was watching the thing that shall not be named with some friends and we stayed out for a little while after that, but I was driving them all home, so I couldn’t do shots with them. And then… things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go, and I think it’s safe to say that they also didn’t go the way you wanted them to go, and it was a little unsatisfying and then I had the actual crisis…”

“There’s a second crisis?”

“There are, like, five.”

“That’s a lot of… crisises.”

Nessie smirks.

“What is it really?” Connor asks, because he obviously got that one wrong.

“It’s crises.”

“Of course it is, because that makes perfect sense.”

Nessie nods. “It sure does.” She smiles brightly. “Anyway, I have no idea what I’m doing with my life, which I’m mostly okay with, really, but I’m kinda not sure where all of this is going and everyone else has boyfriends and girlfriends and goals and ideas and plans, and it made me a little anxious tonight. Maybe it even made me  _very_  anxious. So I decided to go for a drive and then I remembered the mac and cheese burgers and here I am.”

“I’m sorry,” Connor says. He hands his garlic fries to her, because he can’t think of anything comforting to say.

“It’s okay, you didn’t personally ruin my life,” Nessie says.

Connor laughs.

“Aren’t you glad I showed up to entertain you with my insignificant problems so you don’t have to deal with your own?”

“Totally,” Connor says. “Although I am dealing with my problems.” He nods at his now empty tray. “See?”

Nessie lifts up what’s left of her burger. “Yeah, I get it, dude.”

Connor sighs and takes a big sip of his milkshake.

“Just sulk for a bit,” Nessie says.

“Huh?”

“The thing that happened that we’re not talking about? The thing that causes you such displeasure?” Nessie says. “Sulk about it. Be mad or sad or whatever you need to be and then put it behind you and start over. Not that I’m giving you advice or anything. It’s none of my business. Also, this isn’t the first time this has happened to you, so…”

Connor smiles at her. “Yeah. Definitely not the first time.”

“I speak from experience when I say this… It’s probably also not the last time.”

“I’m afraid you’re right about that,” Connor says.

Nessie makes a face. “That’s kinda the issue, isn’t it? In the end, you lose more often than you win. And, like, our league has six teams. Yours has thirty-two. What are the chances?”

“I mean, when you put it like that…”

“See? When you’re just in the crowd, you’re like,  _Ohh, you idiots haven’t won the Cup in years, you’re terrible_ , but there are thirty-one other teams competing for the thing. Even just making the playoffs is like a fifty-fifty thing for you.”

Connor raises his eyebrows at her. “Are you trying to make me feel better?”

“I’d never,” Nessie says. “I’d never even mention… the thing that happened earlier.”

“Right,” Connor says, grinning. “That thing.”

Nessie winks at him.

“It’s like we’re talking about Lord Voldemort.”

“Oh, Waldo, you like  _Harry Potter_?”

“I love it. I actually read those.”

Something happens on Nessie’s face and Connor isn’t really sure how to interpret it.

“What?” he asks.

“Let me guess, you’ve read seven books in your whole life and it was just the  _Harry Potter_  books.”

“Excuse you, I’ve read at least… twelve books.”

Nessie bursts out laughing. “Sorry.”

“Nah, I really don’t like reading that much, I mostly listen to audio books on the plane.”

“Huh,” Nessie says and then stuffs the rest of her burger into her mouth.

“Was the burger…”

“Wonderful? Amazing? A revelation? A religious experience? Yes. Absolutely. You should try it sometime.”

“You would seriously recommend that burger to other people?” Connor asks.

“Have one. Not today, but someday. I’ll pay for it,” Nessie says. “Just because I want to watch you try it.”

Connor can’t help but grin. “Deal.”

“It’s a date, then.” Nessie blinks at him. “Or something like that. An informal meeting. That’ll involve a mac and cheese burger.”

Connor stares at her for a moment. “It can be a date,” he says. He has no idea why he says it. It’s a weird time. Not a good time to make decisions or anything. And not just because it’s the middle of the night.

“It can be?” Nessie asks.

“I don’t know,” Connor says. He has no idea what’s going on anymore.

“Yeah, that makes two of us.”

She starts laughing and Connor finds himself laughing along. This is the strangest night he’s had in a while. He thought there wasn’t anything good about it, but he really doesn’t mind that he was wrong about that.


	80. playoffs, Chapter 15.6

**playoffs**

 

**Chapter 15.6**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

okay so now that the ravens and the cardinals are both out of the playoff race, who are we rooting for?

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

shane wilds? yeah okay. shane wilds it is

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

yeah I really only mean shane wilds not the colorado hawks….. I don’t need another team that’ll eventually make me cry

*

“We should go to bed,” Sarah mumbles, but her lips are back on Nadira’s a moment later.

Nadira doesn’t really care, because she has the weekend off and she wouldn’t mind sleeping until noon tomorrow. She has to drive home to make her video at some point, but the Cardinals’ season is over now, so she needs some time to think about what she’s going to say.

It’s been the most ridiculous season. Thanks to the podcast, she actually has subscribers now. There are people out there who  _like_  what she has to say.

She’s already planning her videos for the offseason – about the draft and the awards and whatever dumb trades they’re all going to make – but for now she’s glad that she’s going to have a little break.

“Nadi,” Sarah whispers when Nadira starts kissing her neck.

Nadira presses another kiss to Sarah’s skin. “Yeah?”

“I forgot.”

“Hmm…” Nadira laughs and lets go of Sarah to reach around her to grab the Doritos bowl.

She’s been eating non-stop for hours. It’s that kind of day. They went to a sports bar in Silver Lakes to watch the game and they kept ordering food – some fries here, mozzarella sticks there, a bunch of mini burgers, and then some more fries, and a sad, sad ice cream sundae after the game – and while Nessie was driving home a bunch of the girls, Nadira and Sarah went back to Cedar Mills and decided to put on a movie and eat some chips and popcorn, and now here they are. Making out. In the kitchen. Because that’s what they always do instead of doing the things they  _should_  be doing.

Nadira pushes that thought away quickly.

It’s been a few weeks since Sarah won the Cup. Ever since then they’ve very carefully avoided having a conversation about their future together. Sarah told her that she needed time to think about what she wants to do, but Nadira has a feeling that she might already know and just doesn’t want to say it yet.

She’s starting to wonder if she should just ask, but then she also promised Sarah that she’d give her the time she needs to think about it.

Instead of pondering the whole thing once again, Nadira eats a bunch of Doritos.

In the hallway, the door gives a quiet click. There’s some shuffling, a moment of silence, then Nessie says, “Are you guys still awake?”

“Yeah,” Sarah says, “how was the burger?”

“Oh my god…” Nessie comes waltzing into the kitchen and sinks down onto one of the chairs. “You won’t believe what just happened.”

“Everything okay?” Sarah asks.

Nessie laughs. “Fuck me if I know. So, I drove to my culinary happy place and bought my burger and then guess who I see?”

“Who?” Nadira asks.

“A sad boy with a burger.”

“What?”

“It was Waldo.”

Nadira laughs. “Good for him. He deserved that burger.”

“Did you talk to him?” Sarah asks.

“Yeah, so… I walked up to him to say hi, because, you know, we’ve talked in the past and it would have felt rude not to say anything at all, right? So we ended up talking and I sat there with him, and it was… kinda nice? He’s such a good dude, honestly. Almost made me forget about all the issues I had before I bought that burger.”

“He’s the only straight man I trust,” Nadira says.

“Yeah, I don’t know what the hell just happened,” Nessie says, “but I think I might go out on a date with him at some point.”

Sarah’s eyes go wide. “Seriously?”

“I don’t know? It sounded like he might want to. And I think  _I_  might want to? As I said… I have no idea what the fuck just happened. This was, like, one of those unreal dead-of-the-night encounters. It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Nadira can’t help it, all she says is, “Wait, do you know if he’s staying?”

Sarah elbows her in the ribs.

Nadira isn’t even asking because she’s nosy or because she wants to know before everyone else, it has nothing to do with her job. It’s because Nadira has spent the last couple of weeks asking herself the same question over and over –  _What if Sarah doesn’t decide to stay?_

“I have no idea,” Nessie says. “I didn’t ask, but I don’t think he knows yet anyway.”

“Oh,” Nadira only says.

“It’s not a  _thing_  anyway.” Nessie shrugs. “He probably won’t call. And I won’t call him either. Because…” She takes a deep breath. “Oh no, I actually  _want_  to call him. I need to go to bed and contemplate my horrid life choices.” She shuffles out of the kitchen, but not without grabbing the bag of M&Ms that Sarah and Nadira haven’t put away yet.

“Do you think it’s too nosy if I ask Waldo about this tomorrow?” Nadira whispers.

Sarah smirks. “Probably,” she whispers back.

Nadira tilts up her head to kiss Sarah. “We should go to bed,” she says.

Sarah hums in agreement.

They don’t go to bed, though. Not for a while.

*

**[Nick]**

_come downstairs?_

Alex frowns down at his phone. He’s still in the kitchen, putting away the cookies he made earlier. Waldo got home late, gave Alex the smallest of smiles when Alex wordlessly handed him a plate of cookies, and then disappeared into his room.

He abandons the cookies, grabs his phone and shuffles to the front door. Byron, sleepy under the table, watches him go. Alex sent Nick a text earlier to ask him if he needed anything and Nick told him that he’d just head home and go to bed. Alex wasn’t at the game tonight – they needed him at the rink and he can’t always switch shifts with people. It might have been better this way.

Alex told Nick to call whenever and then left it at that. If Nick needs some time, Alex will leave him alone.

Although now Nick is outside the door, so maybe he doesn’t want to be left alone.

Alex opens the door and finds Nick outside, in sweatpants and a Cardinals hoodie. The night air is cool and the wind is ruffling Nick’s hair. “Hey,” Alex says.

“Hey.”

“Come in?” Alex says and opens the door a little wider.

Nick looks around, like he’s scared that he’s being followed. “I…”

“Nadi isn’t here and Connor is probably already asleep.”

“I know, but…”

“It’s okay,” Alex says. “You don’t have to come in.”

Nick sighs. “Wanna drive around for a bit?”

Alex nods and grabs his keys. He follows Nick to his car and gets into the passenger seat. Nick turns up the radio as he pulls out of the driveway and drives away from Cedar Mills. They don’t say much, but Nick eventually reaches out to take Alex’s hand.

Nick doesn’t speed as he takes them further west. Alex glances at him, wondering if there’s anything he should say. What would really make Nick feel better right now? Alex knows him well enough to get to the bottom of this, to figure out why Nick came to him, why he wants him around right now. There has to be something Alex can do for him right now.

The answer is pretty obvious. Alex clears his throat. “You know,” he says, “I brought the keys for the rink.”

“You did?”

“Do you have your skates?”

“They’re in the trunk.”

Alex squeezes his hand. “Come on, let’s go to the rink.”

A smile tugs at Nick’s lips as he takes a left. It takes them ten minutes to get back to Cedar Mills. Nick pulls into a parking spot close to the door.

“You could have just parked right in front,” Alex mutters as he gets out of the car.

“It says no parking.” Nick pulls his skates out of the trunk and follows Alex to the front door, waving at the  _No Parking_  sign.

“Nicky, it’s literally just us,” Alex says and unlocks the front door and punches in the code for the alarm. “Also, I own the place.”

“So, I’m allowed to park in front of the door?”

“In the middle of the night, yes.” Alex flicks on the lights and finds the key for the front office. “I’ll meet you downstairs. Rink 2, okay?”

“Okay,” Nick says, his eyes lingering for a moment before he makes his way downstairs.

Alex doesn’t actually have anything to do in the front office and he appreciates that Nick didn’t ask what he’s doing. Alex stops in the middle of the office for a moment and takes a deep breath. They’re somewhere between night and morning and being here almost feels like a dream. He hasn’t been at the rink this late in years.

He must have been in college. Maybe it was even before that. High school? The summer before he left?

Alex shakes his head. He’s getting carried away. He’s in here for a reason. He opens the small closet that’s crammed into the back of the office. They keep all kinds of crap in there and a little while ago, Alex dropped a bag at the bottom. There’s a pair of gloves and a shoebox full of stick tape on top of it now. Alex takes it all off and grabs the bag.

Surprisingly, Nick isn’t on the ice yet when Alex joins him. It’s almost funny to see Nick in skates without all his gear on. He looks a lot smaller. Nick looks up. “Hey, Alex, wanna…” He trails off and frowns when Alex puts down his bag on the bench. “What do you have there?”

“It’s my skates,” Alex says.

Nick nods, like he was expecting exactly that. He smiles. “So you actually wanna come skate with me?”

“I kinda need to know if I can skate,” Alex says.

“You  _need_  to?”

“Yeah.”

“Sure, okay,” Nick says and nudges the bag, maybe a little impatient.

Alex needs that impatience right now, because if it was just him, if Nick wasn’t looking like he’s dying to get on that ice, it would probably take Alex several hours to even convince himself to put on those skates.

He sits down on the bench and pulls out the skates. He sharpened them when he first brought them to the rink. It doesn’t really feel like anything when he puts them on. It’s not dramatic, it doesn’t feel like coming home, it doesn’t feel like he missed out on anything when he wasn’t wearing them. It doesn’t really feel like any time has passed at all since he last put them on.

“Ready?” Nick asks.

“I don’t even know,” Alex says. He feels fine for now, but he’s still just sitting on the bench. It’ll probably work exactly like it does when he walks around too much. His knee will start hurting first, then it’ll feel like it’s his entire leg, and then he’ll want to lie the fuck down. Or maybe he’ll skate for five seconds and it’ll immediately hurt like hell. If he’d started skating again once he was cleared for it, he wouldn’t be having this problem right now, but he didn’t want to skate again, not if he couldn’t  _play_. And then it all of a sudden felt like it was too late to come back and put on skates again.

Nick reaches over him and opens up the door. “I’m not going until you are.”

“Why are you like this?”

“You love that I am like this,” Nick says.

Alex sighs.

“Hey,” Nick says and takes Alex’s hand. “It’s gonna be okay, I swear. I will forcibly push you on the ice, though, if that’s what you need me to do.”

Alex accepts that without question and stands up. He doesn’t need that much of a push. “Thanks, I’m good.”

“I know,” Nick says easily.

Alex gets on the ice without falling and looks around to see if Nick is following him. He stretches out his arm and Nick’s fingers curl around his a moment later.

“You want me to pull you?” Nick asks.

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, then…”

“Seriously?” Nick grumbles, but obediently takes Alex’s other hand and pulls him along. “See? You’re fine.”

Yeah, he’s fine being pulled across the ice. Very slowly.

“I’m letting go,” Nick says, like he was reading Alex’s mind. “You good?”

“Sure,” Alex says. He sounds a lot more confident than he feels. It’s been actual years since the last time he went skating, but he hasn’t forgotten. It’s like riding a bike. Hard to forget how it works.

He takes it easy at first, Nick staying behind him, giving him enough space to go as fast or as slow as he wants to. Alex eventually comes to a halt at center ice, which is where Nick catches up with him. He’s not even out of breath.

Alex sighs.

Nick looks at him and waits.

“I mean, I guess it’s okay,” Alex says. He lets the  _but_  hang in the air between them.

“But not the same,” Nick says quietly. “So are you taking off your skates and never putting them on again?”

Alex shrugs. “Maybe it’s worth it.”

Again, Nick doesn’t say anything, just looks at him and waits.

“Remember when I told you that I was doing something and I didn’t want to tell you about it yet but I said I’d tell you eventually?”

“Oh, this is it, huh?”

“I met up with my former coach at East Harbor and the team’s current coach. Dan Reed? He’s been coaching them for the past two seasons. He said he has an assistant coach job for me next season if I can skate.”

Nick grins. “Guess you can give him a call in the morning.”

“I…”

“What?” Nick asks.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you not know, Alex? You know you can skate, you know you can coach, you–”

“Can I, though?”

“Why’d you even meet them and convince them to give you a job if you don’t think you can actually do it?”

Alex gives him a half-hearted shove. Nick has a point and Alex doesn’t like it. “What if they just want me because…”

“Because of your dad?” Nick asks.

“Yeah.” The thought has crossed his mind. Several times. Part of him knows that it’s not true, that they really do think that he can help the team, because he’s been on that team, because he led that team in scoring, but he still has his doubts. Maybe it’s even just pity.

Nick takes his hand and says, very softly, “Stop. If they want you there, you deserve to be there.”

Alex shakes his head, mostly to shake off his thoughts. “It’s been a while since I last played.”

“Are you saying you’re rusty?”

That is, in fact, exactly what Alex was saying.

“Okay,” Nick says, not waiting for a reply, “tomorrow I have the day off. Then we’re doing exit interviews. And the day after you and I are gonna meet here an hour before you open and we’ll do stickhandling drills, okay?”

“Are you actually asking if it’s okay or is that just a formality at this point?” Alex asks.

“You have your stick in the front office, don’t think I didn’t see that it has your name on it.”

“So?”

“So don’t even pretend that you don’t want to,” Nick says. He gives Alex a pat on the back. And then, after a moment, he leans over to give him a kiss. “Might help with the rust.”


	81. vows, Chapter 16.1

**vows**

 

**Chapter 16.1**

 

*

**Cedar Mills Rink**  @cedarmillsrink

Reminder: The rink will be closed this Saturday & Sunday. To check out the full summer schedule visit: cedarmillsskating.com/current-schedule

*

When Ashley wakes up, it’s 5:12. That’s early for her. Too early. She doesn’t want to be awake. She has the day off, so she can take care of last minute wedding business, and Alex probably didn’t want her at the rink because he knew that she’d be a nervous wreck and wouldn’t be able to focus on anything anyway.

Ashley closes her eyes long enough for the clock to change to 5:13.

She rolls over so the clock can’t mock her anymore.

Except now she’s looking at Jamie, who’s still fast asleep. Jamie is one of those people who look pretty even when they’re asleep. There’s no open-mouthed grunting, or snoring, and no drooling, nothing of the sort. He looks like a little angel. A 6’3” angel.

Ashley turns over again. The alarm clock unhelpfully tells her that it is now 5:16, which means that she spent a solid three minutes staring at Jamie in their mostly dark bedroom.  

She could just get up and do something productive, but instead she closes her eyes, ignores the clock, and thinks about all the things that could go wrong tomorrow. She could get a gigantic pimple on her forehead. She could trip on her way down the aisle. The forecast says it’s going to be sunny, but there could be a surprise rainstorm. They have a tent for the reception, but the wedding is supposed to be outdoors, and what if a huge swarm of bees starts to attack them? What if her dress doesn’t fit?

Maybe she should try on her dress. Just to make sure that it actually fits. Not right now, though, not at – she squints at the clock – at 5:23 in the morning. She rolls over to stare at Jamie a little more and finds Jamie looking back at her.

“You okay?” Jamie asks softly.

Ashley stares at him. Is she okay? She honestly has no idea. What does being okay feel like? She can’t remember. “Who the hell even knows?” She sighs. “Can I ask you something? I know it’s not the best time to ask questions, seeing how we were gonna sleep in, but–”

“Just ask.”

“On a scale from one to ten, how scared are you?” Ashley asks.

“Maybe a six. You know, I had a dream that I tripped before the wedding and my suit ripped, but you said you’d marry me anyway.”

“Oh, yeah, I totally would. It would make you look rugged and maybe a bit like a super spy.”

Jamie grins. “What about you?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“How scared are you?”

Ashley stares at the ceiling. “Like, a twelve?”

“A  _twelve_?”

“There are so many things that could go wrong. And I haven’t even made a complete list yet.”

“Yeah, don’t make a list like that,” Jamie says.

“I’m scared that my dress won’t fit.”

“Didn’t you have a fitting… to make sure that your dress fits?”

“Yeah?”

“So?”

“What if it… I don’t know, James.”

“Whoa. Okay.”

“Stop being so smarty-pantsy.”

“It’s, like, five in the morning, stop being  _awake_.”

“I  _can’t_.”

“Do you wanna cuddle?”

“No.” Ashley huffs. Cuddling won’t help. What she really wants is for it to be tomorrow, because right now she’s just waiting for something to happen, and she’ll be waiting all day, and she’ll have so much time to think. Maybe a hug  _would_  be nice. “Yes.” Although then she definitely won’t go back to sleep. “No.”

“Final decision?”

“Fuck’s sake. I’m getting up,” Ashley says.

“Seriously?”

“I need to…”

“Try on your dress? Ash, babe, I’m not supposed to see it before the wedding.”

“Shhh, I’m not trying on the dress. I think. I don’t even know how to get into the dress on my own. I’m gonna need help going to the bathroom so I don’t pee on it.”

“So romantic,” Jamie says softly.

“Shut it, Jameson.”

Jamie huff-laughs at her and pulls the duvet over Ashley’s face.

“I need to go to Alex’s later to see if everything looks okay.”

“Sure, I’ll come with.”

“Can we go somewhere for breakfast?” Ashley asks.

“Where do you wanna go?”

“I don’t care, buy me a McMuffin or something.”

“I will, but can I sleep for… two more hours?”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Jamie snickers softly and rolls onto his back.

“You know, when I told the girls not to do the bachelorette party super close to the wedding, I thought I was a genius, because that way I’d actually get to sleep and be well-rested, but no, my brain has to throw an anxiety party.”

Her bachelorette party last weekend was lovely, and she was very drunk,  _everyone_  was very drunk, and Alex drove them all home afterwards, because of course he had to be there, too. He’s one of her best friends. She almost wanted to find some way for him to be a brides…man. Or something. But Alex is probably more comfortable helping out behind the scenes anyway.

“Are you going back to sleep?” Jamie asks.

“Totally.”

He gives her a nudge under the covers. “Think about how beautiful I’m gonna look when you walk towards me down the aisle.”

When he says that, Ashley can almost see it. Walking towards him. Smiling at him. Him smiling back at her. The sun is gentle. Everyone’s happy.

And then, in her fantasy, she trips.

“Fuck’s sake,” she mutters and pulls Jamie’s arm around her. She does want that hug now.

*

It’s barely light out when Alex wakes up, so for a moment he isn’t quite sure where he is or why his bed feels so weird or why something is tickling his neck. He shifts and bumps into something next to him.

That would be Nick.

Alex sniffles and Nick wraps an arm around him. “Don’t get up yet.”

“Why the fuck are you awake?” Alex grumbles. He wasn’t even thinking about getting up. He turns his head and huffs. “Your hair is in my face.”

Nick gently pats his chest. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

Alex groans and shifts again to get Nick’s hair away from his nose. It’s practically impossible.

“Do you wanna have breakfast here before you go to the rink?” Nick whispers.

“Sure.”

“Can I come?”

Alex tries really hard not to laugh, but he doesn’t exactly manage and makes a weird gargling sound. It’s like Nick will die if he doesn’t regularly set foot in a rink. Nick was off winning that Lady Byng trophy in Vegas last week and then he spent a week with his parents down in Virginia. He came back late last night, so Alex assumed that Nick might just want to relax a bit today, but that’s clearly not the case. “Yeah,” Alex replies and pulls up the duvet. “Go back to sleep. It’s too early to get up.”

Nick hums and nudges Alex’s jaw with his nose. “Okay.” He sniffs. “You need to shave.”

“You need a haircut,” Alex says and kisses the top of Nick’s head.

“No,  _you_  need a haircut.” Nick scoots closer and makes himself comfortable with his head on Alex’s shoulder, slowly running his fingers up and down Alex’s chest, tracing the writing on his shirt.

“Go back to sleep,” Alex says again.

He gets the same reply as before.

When Nick doesn’t say anything else, Alex closes his eyes. He stayed up so late waiting for Nick to come home last night that he sort of wants to sleep until noon, but they really need him at the rink today. Ashley isn’t working today – her wedding is tomorrow, so she’ll be busy enough. Alex could probably use Nick’s help at the rink. Not that they’ll have too many customers in late June.

“Okay,” Nick eventually says and shifts again, hooks a leg over Alex’s and tucks his head under Alex’s chin. “Okay,” he says again. His fingers are curled, Alex’s shirt bunched up between them. “Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“Hmm,” is the only answer Alex gets.

Alex laughs quietly and nuzzles into Nick’s hair. “Just sleep.”

“Hm.”

Clearly Nick has no problems whatsoever with going back to sleep. In fact, it seems that he’s practically asleep already, so Alex runs his fingers through Nick’s hair for a bit and then tries to go back to sleep as well.

“Alex?” Nick whispers after a moment.

“Yeah?”

Nick tilts up his head. “Hm… can you…”

“Sure,” Alex mumbles and goes back to running his fingers through Nick’s hair. He doesn’t go back to sleep, but that’s okay.

They have frozen waffles for breakfast because there’s barely any food in Nick’s fridge and then Nick convinces Alex to leave his bike in the garage so he can drive him to the rink. It’s probably better that way, because biking isn’t that much fun with Alex’s knee acting up on a good day, but to get to the rink from here, he’d have to go up a hill, and Nick won’t take no for an answer. They got up too late, so the car is really their only option anyway.

It’s almost funny, because Alex doesn’t really believe in fate or that everything happens for a reason, because that would mean that what happened to him happened for a reason, too, and he can’t imagine what reason that would be, but, looking at how this morning is going for him, looking at what had to happen for him to take this particular route to the rink, it almost seems like there’s some higher-power-funny-business going on.

When he spends the night at Nick’s, Alex usually goes back home to pick up Byron in the morning before he heads to the rink. He doesn’t have time for that today, but that’s okay, because Connor’s home.

So they’re driving.  _Nick_  is driving. Which gives Alex time to look out the window.

And Nick takes a different route to the rink.

And it really seems like too much of a coincidence. Because the route Nick takes leads them down Main and then up Winter Hill Road.

Back when Alex was a kid, when he played street hockey with his friends in Cedar Lane, he often took the long way home. Down Main, and up Winter Hill, and past the rink, and down Oak, and back onto Main, and  _then_  to his house. Just because he didn’t want to go home yet. And because he liked the houses on Winter Hill.

They’re all half-hidden between the trees, but you can catch a glimpse when you stop in the right spot. Some of them are tiny, some huge, like the castle-like mansion that’s almost at the top of the hill, and one of those houses, a small blue Victorian-style house with a little tower, was always Alex’s favorite. He used to stop on the sidewalk at the end of the driveway and he looked up and wondered who lived in that house.

Sometimes he imagined what it’d be like if  _he_  lived in that house. If he had a small bedroom, maybe in that tower. If he didn’t have parents who’d bought a mansion. If coming home felt like… coming home.

“Nick, stop. Pull over.”

“You– What?”

Alex is pretty impressed with how quickly Nick reacts when Alex tells him to pull over without a warning. He slams the breaks and stops at the side of the road, frowning at Alex.

“You okay?” Nick asks.

“Yeah, just…” Alex grabs his phone. “Sorry. I’ll be right back.” He gets out of the car, makes sure he won’t get run over and runs across the street to the blue house’s driveway.

It’s for sale.

He recognizes the realtor’s name. Finn’s sister works for them. Alex snaps a picture of the sign and looks up at the house. Alex hasn’t been here in years, hasn’t stopped on his way to the rink, because he never takes this way home anymore. Only sometimes, when he drove by, he slowed down a bit to peer up at it.

Alex can basically feel Nick’s eyes on him.

He doesn’t really have time to linger, so he gets back in the car and lets out a deep breath. “Nick.”

“Yes?”

“I’m gonna buy that house.”

“You… are?”

Alex nods. “I’ll explain, but I’m kinda late for work now, so…”

“Okay,” Nick says and shifts back into drive, looking vaguely amused.

“It’s a nice house,” Alex says, but it doesn’t explain much. He’s not sure how to explain to Nick that he saw himself in that house when he was just a kid.

When they get to the rink, Finn has already unlocked the front door and is in the front office, tutting at him.

“I know,” Alex says.

“Oh, and you brought our only customer,” Finn says and raises his coffee in greeting.

“Hey,” Nick says. “I’m here to help out.”

“Doing what?” Finn asks.

“I don’t know, what do you need me to do?”

“Uh… nothing right now?” Alex says.

“There has to be something.”

Alex looks around the empty hallway. “You can… sharpen rental skates?”

“Sure,” Nick says. “Go on, I guess you need to make a phone call? I’ll be okay.”

“You will?”

“I’ll help him if he needs help,” Finn says, winking at Nick.

“Thanks,” Alex says and wanders away down the hall, already dialing the realtor’s number.

He smiles when Finn’s sister answers.

He’s going to buy a house.

*

“Well, look at that!”

Nick turns around and peers out the front office window. He came to the rink to help out and he’s mostly been doing whatever Alex needed him to do. He started with the rental skates, then he checked some of the other equipment, took pictures of everything in the Lost & Found bin, drove the Zamboni, and around noon he went out to buy them all lunch.

They’re closing in ten minutes and there’s not a single person left at the rink, save for Alex, who’s fixing up the ice in Rink 1. Finn left twenty minutes ago.

But now Zach Goldman is here, beaming at the drawing of Alan Harper on the chalkboard. He takes a picture, then he turns around to face the front office, only to take a step back. “Nick Rivera,” Zach says. “Is this your summer job?”

“Just helping out,” Nick says. He actually did end up signing some things for people who recognized him when they came across him in the hallway. He told them he was visiting an old friend.

Zach laughs. “Yeah, I know… You kids just can’t stay away from the ice.” He looks around. “Is Alex here?”

“He’s–”

“Dad, hey.”

“–right there.”

“Alex,” Zach says and walks over to give Alex a hug.

Alex makes a face at Nick over his dad’s shoulder, but doesn’t pull away until his dad lets him go. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s at the house,” Zach says. “We had dinner and I just dropped her off. Connor told me you were still here.” He gives Alex’s back a pat. “Says he hasn’t seen you in a while.”

“Really?” Alex says, looking less than delighted.

“He tried really hard not to tell me that you didn’t spend the night at home. You could say I just drew my own conclusions.”

Alex doesn’t reply to that, his eyes meeting Nick’s for a moment in a silent plea for help.

“So, Zach, for how long are you staying?” Nick asks.

“Just for the wedding. I have a commitment in Toronto on Tuesday and then we’re off to Europe for a few weeks.”

“That sounds nice.”

Zach nods. “We’ve found some nice places in France over the years.” He turns to Alex. “Are you closing up?”

“I’m about to.”

“Do you think Nick and I could stick around for another half hour?” Zach asks, his smile broad. “Only if Nick wants to, of course.”

“He wants to,” Alex says and locks the front door. “Mind if I join you?”

Nick looks at Zach, whose surprise is written all over his face. He catches himself remarkably quickly and says, “Please, your old man is probably gonna need help getting off the ice.”

Alex shakes his head at him and goes into the front office to get his skates out of the closet. He bends down to Nick. “Do you have your skates in the car?”

Of course Nick has his skates in the car. He wouldn’t come to the rink without them, even if he wasn’t exactly planning on skating today. “I’ll go get them.”

“Here,” Alex says and hands him the keys for the rink. “I think we’ll be in Rink 1.”

“Thanks,” Nick says. The keys feel heavy in his palm. He knows that Alex doesn’t just hand these to anyone and it makes him feel strangely light that Alex just gave them to him like it was nothing.

“Dad, I need to talk to you about something,” Alex says to his dad as he walks back out of the office.

“Absolutely,” Zach says.

Nick doesn’t stick around to listen. He already knows what this is about. He hasn’t asked Alex about the house again, but Nick doesn’t really need an explanation, because he saw Alex’s eyes light up this morning when he told Nick how much he’s always loved that house.

He grabs his skates and lets himself back into the rink. He has a stick stashed in the closet next to Alex’s, so he grabs that one, too. He doesn’t have any equipment other than that, but they’re only heading down for a quick skate anyway.

Alex and his dad are already on the ice when Nick joins them. He loves seeing Alex in skates, how comfortable he looks now that they’ve met up a few times in the morning. Alex is still too hard on himself, but Nick also knows that Alex can see how much better he’s doing on skates now that he’s been practicing almost daily. Sometimes he’ll overdo it a little, mostly when they skate in the evening and neither of them has to go home, but by now Nick can tell when it’s time for him to usher Alex off the ice.

When Nick hops over the boards and skates up to Alex and his dad, Zach trails off in the middle of his sentence and smiles at Nick.

“It’s okay,” Alex says, “Nick already knows.”

“Yeah?” Zach says. “What do you think about that house, then?”

“I haven’t really had a chance to take a look at it.”

“Well, apparently neither has Alex,” Zach says with an amused smile. “And yet he is convinced that he wants it.”

“It’s a good house, Dad.”

“I don’t doubt that it’s a good house. I’m just saying, if we’re going to buy it, we should at least make sure that it doesn’t have blood stains on the carpet.”

“Dad.”

“I’m kidding.”

Alex rolls his eyes at him, but there’s something very fond about it that Nick doesn’t see often in Alex when it comes to Zach. “Anyway,” Alex says, “I’m the one who’s buying it.”

“Oh,” Zach says. “Well, we can talk about that part later.”

“Dad.”

“I’m just saying–”

“ _Dad_.”

“Yes, Dad is shutting the hell up now,” Zach says good-naturedly. “Tell me about your girlfriend, then.”

Alex only stares at him blankly.

“You weren’t home all night, I’m assuming you were out with a lady friend?”

“What if it was just a friend?” Alex asks.

“Was it just a friend?”

“Dad,” Alex says.

“I’m sorry, I’m just interested. So I’m not meeting your significant other that you may or may not be serious about at the wedding tomorrow?”

Alex goes back to staring instead of replying.

Nick shifts uncomfortably. Although, if he’s honest, Zach Goldman is one of the very few people he’d trust with this secret. He’s not sure why, because he barely knows him, but Zach is always so outspoken when it comes to the league’s initiatives and he’s said several times that he’d absolutely support a gay player in his locker room, and in any other locker room, if anyone decided to come out.

He gets why Alex hasn’t told him that he’s gay, though. It’s different, because he’s not just a player in a locker room. The relationship’s different. Everything’s different.

“Well, whoever they are, I hope they make you happy,” Zach says.

Alex stares at him for another moment, then he says, “Thanks.” He gives his dad a tap with his stick. “Ready?”

Zach sighs. “Sure.” He turns to Nick. “Have you met… the mystery friend?”

“Yes, he has,” Alex says.

“Do you approve?”

Nick glances at Alex, who looks more entertained than annoyed now. “I… Yes?” Nick says.

“Good,” Zach says and picks up a puck with the stick he must have borrowed from the rink. “So, Nick, tell me all your secrets, so I can tell my boys how to stop you.”

Nick laughs. He likes Alex’s dad. He’s pretty sure that Alex likes his dad, too, but he also understands why they don’t always get along and why Alex gets annoyed when his dad asks a few questions too many.

They don’t stick around for too long and Alex gets off the ice first to get the Zamboni. Nick and Zach head to the bench as well once Alex has wandered off.

“Thank you, Nick,” Zach says as he pulls off his skates.

“I… uh… for what?”

“I don’t know what exactly happened or how you convinced Alex to put on skates again, but since you’re the only thing around here that’s changed, I’m assuming…”

“He was the one who wanted to get back on the ice,” Nick says lowly. “I didn’t do anything, I just happened to be around.”

Zach’s lips twitch into a small smile. “Thanks for being around, then.”

Nick nods.

He grabs Alex skates and stick to take them back upstairs. Zach follows him up the stairs, talking idly about the playoffs, about the players he knows on the Colorado Hawks who ended up winning the Cup. Connor definitely had tears in his eyes when it was Shane’s turn to lift the Cup.

“I remember winning it for the first time like it was… maybe not yesterday, but… you know. Best feeling in the world. Well, I don’t have to tell you what it feels like,” Zach is saying as they reach the front office.

“Yeah,” Nick says. To him, winning the Cup seems like it was ages ago.

Zach looks at him, and maybe Nick is reading too much into this, but it almost seems like Zach is about to ask him something he knows he shouldn’t be asking. Maybe about the Lions. Maybe about why they traded him. The expression on his face – a little frown, a little quirk to his lips – fades into something more neutral. “Are you excited for the wedding tomorrow?”

“Yeah, it’ll be, uh, nice.”

In truth, Nick isn’t looking forward to sitting at the same table as Alex all evening and not being able to reach out and touch him, but that’s an entirely different issue. Tomorrow isn’t about him. So they won’t hold hands. So they won’t dance. So they won’t kiss. He knew from the start that it was going to be like this.


	82. vows, Chapter 16.2

**vows**

 

**Chapter 16.2**

 

*

**Sarah Albright**  @sassalbright

my judgement of how much cake is too much cake is just completely skewed at weddings

|

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

the same applies to drinks tbh

|

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

you guys are literally sitting next to each other

*

“I’m going to cry,” Connor whispers. “Don’t look at me.”

“I’m not,” Alex whispers back.

“Why are you whispering?” Nessie asks loudly. “It hasn’t even started yet.”

“And I  _already_  feel like I’m going to cry.”

Nessie huffs at him.

“Alex,” Connor says, and turns to his right. “Hold me. Nessie is mean to me.”

“No,” Alex says.

“You call her Nessie?” Nick asks and leans around Alex.

“That’s my name,” Nessie says.

“I thought it was…” Nick trails off when Nessie keeps staring at him, eyebrows raised. “Never mind. It’s your name.”

Connor laughs. He honestly wasn’t sure if inviting Nessie to the wedding was a good idea. They’ve gone out together a couple of times, but it was mostly very casual. They kissed, and Nessie came home with him, and they decided to do that again, and maybe they’re a couple now, but it’s still new. And this is a wedding. And all his friends are here. Well. Some of Nessie’s friends are here, too, so Connor didn’t think it would be too awkward.

Ashley didn’t even bat an eye when Connor asked her if he could bring a plus one after all. He was totally convinced that she’d say no anyway, and then he wouldn’t have to deal with asking Nessie if she wanted to go with him, and consequently he also wouldn’t have had to deal with her saying no, because it was way too early for this sort of thing.

But apparently someone else canceled, so Ashley only said, “Sure, who are you bringing?” and that was that.

So Connor did have to ask Nessie. And, yes, he wanted to, that’s why he asked about the whole plus one thing in the first place, but deep down, Connor is convinced that Nessie is actually way out of his league and he has no idea what exactly she likes about him. He was a bit floored when she said yes to coming to the wedding with him immediately.

“Does anyone have tissues?” Connor asks. It’s really not a question of if he’ll cry but of when he’ll start crying.

Finn leans forward from the row behind them. “I got you. Actually… I might need those.”

“We all have tissues, don’t worry,” Nessie says.

“But will you also laugh at me when I ask you for one?”

“Only a little bit.”

Connor makes a point in sniffling at her and then turns to Alex. “So I guess Byron isn’t gonna carry the rings down the aisle?”

Alex laughs. “No.”

“Wait, Byron was going to be the ringbearer?” Finn asks.

“Ashley considered that,” Alex says. “Briefly.”

“Who’s doing it now?” Nessie asks.

“Jamie’s nephew.”

“Okay, that might be cute, but…” Nessie shakes her head. “Who wants a kid when you could have a dog?” She nods at Alex. “Can I pet the dog again later?”

“Of course,” Alex says.

“He’s the best boy,” Connor whispers.

“He really is,” Nick agrees.

“And so soft,” Nessie chimes in.

“His ears,” Connor says, “are the softest.”

“True,” Nick says.

Connor nods. “I love him so much.”

“You guys are all weird,” Alex says.

“Shh, he’s a good boy, Alex.”

“I know,” Alex says, a little gruff.

“He’s always so happy when he sees me,” Connor goes on. That puppy just melts his heart every single day. “When I came home from roadies, he always came to the door to wait for me. And the other day I was napping on the couch and he took a nap with me. And sometimes he brings me his little dragon and it’s so adorable.”

Alex makes a face.

“What?” Connor asks.

“Nothing.”

Connor knows that it’s not nothing, but now is clearly not the time to talk about it. He looks over his shoulder. The seats behind them have mostly filled up and the ceremony will probably start in a few minutes.

He watched this whole thing being set up and he’s still really impressed with how fast it all happened. There’s a tent for the party later, and all the chairs on the lawn and a huge flower arch at the end of the aisle, which is basically just a carpet of yellow, red and pink flower petals. It’s beautiful and colorful and it’s not the typical everything-needs-to-be-white kind of thing and Connor really likes it.

Not that he’s an expert when it comes to colors and decorations or anything like that. He literally asked five people to help him pick a tie for today.

Next to him, Nick whispers something to Alex, and Alex laughs.

Neither of them brought a date. He knows that Nick is single, so he doesn’t even have anyone to bring, and he also knows that Alex is definitely not single, but he apparently also didn’t want to bring whoever he’s seeing. Which Connor gets. So he’s not even going to ask.

If someone had told him a year ago that this was where he’d be now, he probably would have brushed it off and thought it was a joke. Him? Happy? At a wedding? With a date? Maybe about to sign a contract with the team he got traded to last summer? Yeah, right.

He thought he’d be on the Cardinals’ farm team. Or maybe somewhere else entirely. And now it looks like he might end up signing a contract before he even becomes a free agent. He hopes he can get it done.

He wants to stay.

He looks over at Nessie, who smirks and winks at him.

Yeah. He really wants to stay.

*

Ashley is definitely going to cry. She knows her makeup is waterproof, but she doesn’t trust it. It’s not so much the whole getting married thing, but more that Jamie will cry because of the whole getting married thing, and then Ashley is going to cry because Jamie is crying, because that  _always_  happens.

And she definitely can’t look at anyone else during the ceremony, because she comes from a family of criers and so does Jamie, so basically everyone will be crying. She knew that from the start. She cried when Jamie proposed, and Jamie cried, too.

Really, the only person she can probably safely look at without bursting into tears is Alex. It’s not even that Alex never shows any emotions, but when he does it’s in a very controlled way, so he’ll probably just sit there and smile about all of this.

“I think I forgot my vows.”

“No, you didn’t,” Nadira says and gently pulls at Ashley’s skirt to make sure it’s straight.

“Can one of you guys go find Jamie and ask him if he wants to leave  _right now_  and fly to Vegas with me?”

“You don’t wanna get married in Vegas,” Sarah says.

“She’s right,” Lena says. “Atlantic City is the place to go.”

Ashley laughs. Sometimes she thinks she’s okay with Lena living so far away now, all the way up in Montreal, but she’s really not. They were the best of friends, they still are, have been since kindergarten, but then Lena left for college and she never came back to Cedar Mills.

On some days, Ashley isn’t sure why she stayed, although on days like today, she knows why. Still, every time Lena comes by to visit, she reminds Ashley that there’s more out there, and Ashley is grateful for it.

“Okay, I’m not going anywhere, but…” Ashley takes a deep breath and looks at herself in the mirror. “I look nice, right?”

“Beautiful.”

“Stunning.”

“Like a princess.”

Ashley smiles. She does look like a princess. Her skirt is so wide that people will have to dive out of her way and her hair is in those big curls and some strands are tied together with a few flowers. For once it’s not in that horrid in-between state that gives her no choice but to put it all in a bun.

“I’m supposed to feel like I’m about to throw up, right? That’s all part of the deal?”

“I think so?” Sarah says.

“Don’t actually throw up, though,” Lena says. “That’s not gonna look good with your dress.”

“I’m trying,” Ashley says. Really. She’s trying so hard. Ashley takes one last look at herself in the mirror and then turns away. “I’m ready. Can we start now?”

“Two more minutes,” Lena says.

“I can’t wait another two minutes, it’s my wedding, we can start two minutes early if I want to.”

“Okay, we can just go downstairs and wait right inside the house and spy on everyone.”

They spy for a little while as everyone outside is getting ready to go. Ashley’s mom comes in to make sure that she’s ready, and then darts off to make sure that Jamie will take a different door to go outside, so he won’t see her before the start of the ceremony.

What her mother doesn’t know is that they did see each other right before Ashley pulled on her dress. She doesn’t really believe in all of these traditions, but she does want the dress to be a surprise. She wants to walk out there and see the look on Jamie’s face when he sees her. In all honesty, though, she’s really more excited about the part where they get to eat cate and dance.

“Ready?” Lena asks, and Ashley’s thoughts slow to a standstill.

She’s glad that someone is taking a video of this whole thing, because afterwards Ashley can’t remember a thing – just that Jamie’s nephew almost tripped on his way down the aisle with their rings in hand, and that it was starting to get really hot and that she was thirsty and that Jamie was crying and she was also crying, and they said some things about how much they love each other. When they kiss and the whole shebang is over, she’s not even sure if she got her vows right and if she said what she’d meant to say.

Ashley looks into the crowd that’s gathered behind her only once and even her dad is wiping at his eyes. After the ceremony, they take pictures and everyone gathers beside the tent, the flaps still open, for a bite to eat and champagne. People are lining up to congratulate them and Lena hands her a glass of champagne and Ashley finally doesn’t feel like she has to throw up anymore, which is great, because then Sarah shows up with some appetizers and tells her to eat something while she can.

“When do I get to take a nap?” Ashley whispers to Jamie.

Jamie laughs. “I’m not sure, but let me know when you find an escape route.”

“Heey, you did that,” Connor says as he comes up to them with Nessie in tow. “Well done, I only cried fifteen times.”

They’re closely followed by Alex and Nick, who both give her a hug. They don’t actually have time to talk much, because then Jamie’s aunt Peggy descends upon them and they’re in her clasp for a couple of minutes.

Ashley’s mom comes to their rescue eventually. Ashley hasn’t even managed to take more than two sips of her champagne. She downs half of it while no one’s trying to talk to her.

She looks around to find her appetizers, but they’ve disappeared. Before she can enlist someone to find her more food, her great-uncle Walter approaches, and Ashley just drinks the rest of her champagne.

“This is gonna be a long day, isn’t it?” Ashley says to Jamie while Uncle Walter is still out of earshot.

Jamie smiles and leans over to kiss her temple. “Yeah.”

*

Nick finds Alex away from the reception, sitting on the low wall by the terrace, champagne glass in hand, talking to his mom. Nick definitely knows other people at this reception, but whoever he talks to, his eyes always want to find Alex, so he eventually gives in and walks up to him when it looks like his mom might be moving on to talk to someone else.

“Save a dance for your mom,” she’s saying to Alex just when Nick approaches.

Alex looks like he’s about to protest, but eventually settles for a surly, “Fine.”

Angelica laughs and gives Alex’s shoulder a squeeze before she walks away.

“Hey,” Alex says.

Nick sits down next to him. “Hey. You okay?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to sit down for a minute.”

Nick nods and shifts as close to Alex as he can without it looking weird.

Alex smiles. “How much champagne have you had?”

“Not much,” Nick says. His cheeks feel hot, but if he tells Alex that, he’ll get chirped into oblivion.

“You’re such a lightweight,” Alex says and gets up. “Wait here.”

Nick wants to protest, because he didn’t want Alex to have to get up because of him, but Alex waves him off before Nick can say anything. Alex returns to him five minutes later with a plate full of appetizers.

“Oh, these look really good,” Nick says and shoves one into his mouth. He should have eaten something a long time ago.

Alex hands him the plate. “Take the whole thing.”

“Thanks,” Nick says. He looks around, at the flowers and the food and the guests. Everyone looks so happy to be here, so glad that they get to be part of this. “Alex…”

“Hm?”

“Do you want to get married?” Nick asks. He shouldn’t, because there’s a chance that the answer will be one he doesn’t like, but it’s out of his mouth before he can stop himself.

Alex frowns. “I… don’t know.”

Nick raises his eyebrows at him.

“Okay, let me put it this way…” Alex says. “It was never particularly important to me.”

“I see,” Nick says. He’s not sure if it’s important to him, mainly because he’ll never get married anyway.

Alex steals an appetizer off his plate. “Do you want kids?” he asks.

“No,” Nick says. He doesn’t even have to think about that one and he only belatedly realizes that they’re having this very serious conversation about their future like it’s a conversation about the weather.

Alex nods. “Interesting.”

“That a problem?” Nick asks, keeping his voice low, even though they’re far enough away from anyone who could be listening in.  

“Not really,” Alex says. “Dogs?”

Nick smiles. “As many as you want.”

Alex is quiet for a moment, then he bumps his shoulder against Nick’s with a laugh. “Really?”

“You know, in a couple of years, when we have a dozen dogs, I might change my mind about that,” Nick says.

“That would be…” Alex shakes his head. “Too many dogs.”

Nick laughs.

“Nicky?”

“Yeah?”

“You said… in a couple of years.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Nick says.

“Yeah,” Alex echoes.

“Yeah,” Nick replies, nodding. “I meant that… I mean, who knows if you’ll still want me around but–” He stops talking when Alex reaches over to give his wrist a quick squeeze.

“I always want you around,” Alex says and pulls his hand away again.

It was so quick, no one would ever think that there was anything behind it other than them teasing each other, but now Nick wants Alex’s hand back.

Nick eats the last appetizer. He doesn’t even feel tipsy anymore. “I wish I could dance with you tonight,” he says.

“Later,” Alex says. “When no one is watching.”

Nick nods. “Yeah. Later.”

*

“Have I told you that you look super beautiful in that dress?” Sarah says. She knows that she’s said it five times already, but Nadira looks absolutely stunning in that purple bridesmaids dress. They’re all wearing the same color, but their dresses look just slightly different and it’s like whoever thought that up knew exactly what would look best on them. And then Nadira has also done this ridiculous thing with her hair, where it’s braided and twisted and whatnot and Sarah has no idea how she did that.

“No, you definitely haven’t told me,” Nadira says.

They’re on the dancefloor, for the third time tonight, as Sarah has learned to ignore the judging looks of Ashley’s great-uncle. They’ve had the most amazing dinner and they’ve had a couple of drinks and cake and more drinks and all the swaying on the dancefloor isn’t helping, but Sarah is having the best time, even though they’re not exactly great at dancing.

Across the dancefloor, Ashley is currently dancing with Alex, who looks like he’s actually having a good time, even though he was grumbling under his breath when Ashley dragged him away to dance with thim.

“No offense, but I really need to dance with Connor,” Nadira says.

“Yeah, he looks like he knows what he’s doing, doesn’t he?”

“I’m so impressed.”

Sarah glances at Connor and Nessie. There was actually quite a bit of protesting from Nessie when Connor asked her to dance.

The song fades into a slower one and Alex hands Ashley over to Jamie. Sarah and Nadira stay on the dancefloor, but Sarah can tell when Nadira gets distracted. She spins her around and buys herself a few seconds to figure out where Nadira would rather be right now.

It’s not hard to find what distracted her – Zach Goldman is sitting at Alex’s table, talking to him and Nick, and Nadira clearly wants in on that conversation.

“Come on,” Sarah says and tugs her off the dancefloor and over to Alex’s table.

“Wow, you know me so well,” Nadira says.

“Look at you two,” Zach says as they sit down in Connor’s and Nessie’s empty seats. “You look wonderful.”

“Thank you,” Nadira says, beaming.

“For how long have you two been together?” Zach asks.

“Dad.”

“What? I’m just curious.”

“Nosy,” Alex corrects.

“A few months,” Nadira says.

“Lovely,” Zach says. “I support that.”

Alex makes a face at his dad and Nick looks like he’d rather not be part of this conversation. Sarah ignores them, because they’re acting like big babies. There’s nothing wrong with showing support for something.  

“It’s nice to have someone in the NHL who does support the community openly,” Sarah says. Those hockey men never say anything of substance, so this is actually nice to hear.

Zach nods. “We try hard to be inclusive in Seattle.”

“I like the way you guys play,” Nadira says. “Even though you keep murdering my boys.”

“And your boys are…?”

“The Ravens.”

“Oh, you’re not a Cardinals fan, then?”

“I am,” Nadira says, “I just used to cover the Ravens in New York sometimes and I’m still very fond of them, even though I’d rather just… not be.”

“Give them another year or two. They’ll come back from this.” Zach turns to Nick. “I hear they made quite the bid for you, too. I wish they’d considered sending you up to me.”

Nick smiles. “Sorry, I… think I like where I ended up.” It looks like he has to concentrate quite a bit to make sure those words come out properly.

“Oh, no worries, I get it,” Zach says. “It was, uh, quite the loss for the Lions.”

Nick’s smile turns sheepish and he doesn’t say anything, hiding behind his drink, but it’s pretty obvious that he agrees. How could he not? The Lions absolutely tanked after they traded him.

Sarah grins at him.

“Well, I’ll talk to you kids later… Actually…” Zach holds up his phone. “Would one of you take a picture,” he points at Alex, “of us?”

“Do we have to?” Alex asks.

“Yes, you have to,” Zach says and gives him a nudge.

“Here, I’ll do it.” Sarah reaches out and takes a couple of pictures, first of Zach and Alex, then Zach pulls Nick into the picture, and then he waves over Nadira, and eventually he enlists one of Jamie’s relatives to take a photo of their entire table.

“All right, I think it’s about time that I ask my wife to dance,” Zach says and waves at them as he wanders off.

Alex downs his drink.

Nick grins at him and pats his back, and then downs his own drink.

“You guys want another one?” Nadira says. “I’m gonna head over to the bar.”

“I think I’m good for now,” Alex says.

“I…” Nick shakes his head. “Oh, bad.”

Alex laughs at him. “Shit, you’re so drunk.”

“’m fine.”

“Yeah,” Alex says and gives Nick’s head a flick.

“I really am.” He presses the palms of his hands against his cheeks. “My face is really hot. Feel my face. Is it hot?”

Alex is obviously high-key amused by this and obediently touches two fingers to Nick’s cheek. “Wow. Like a volcano.”

“That hot?”

Nadira snorts. “Man, I wish I could tweet about this.”

“Please don’t,” Alex says. “Hey, Nick, I’m gonna go check on Byron. You wanna come? Get some fresh air?”

“That’s probably not a bad idea,” Sarah says.

“Come on,” Alex says and stands up.

Nick follows him, not quite as steady on his feet.

Sarah gives Nadira a nudge. “Babe, are you ready to get hella drunk?”

Nadira takes her hand. “Absolutely. Lead the way.”

*

“I drank too much of that… Whatever that was.”

“Pretty sure it was just rum and Coke,” Alex says. He walks slowly, so Nick doesn’t have trouble following him across the lawn to the house.

Byron is waiting for him by the backdoor and Nick immediately bends down to pet him. “Hey, little buddy.”

Alex tries not to laugh, but he just can’t help himself. Nick doesn’t even notice. Alex gets a leash and takes Byron out front, into the trees next to the driveway. He can’t take him out back tonight, because he’d absolutely crash that wedding.

Nick is waiting for him, sitting on the staircase, head leaning against the bannister.

“That can’t be comfortable,” Alex says as he ushers Byron into the living room and takes off his leash. “Sorry, buddy,” he mumbles and closes the door. People are coming in here to go to the bathroom, so Byron can’t be running around all over the place.

Nick tilts his head, eyes on Alex.

“Nicky?” Alex says.

“Hm?”

“You wanna head back outside?”

“Can you come sit with me?” Nick asks.

Alex looks down the empty hallway. It’s just them right now, but it doesn’t seem like the best idea. He holds out his hand. “Come with me?”

“I don’t wanna walk,” Nick grumbles, but lets Alex pull him to his feet.

Alex doesn’t take him too far away, just around the corner and back into the study, because it faces out front, so no one will see them from the backyard. He only turns on a desk lamp and gently pushes Nick over to the leather sofa that he sinks into with a grateful sigh.

“Alex,” Nick says and gives him a look that’s probably supposed to be stern.

“Yeah?”

Nick pats the empty space next to him.

Alex sits down and Nick slumps against him. “You okay?”

“I think… there was a lot of rum in those drinks,” Nick whispers. He takes Alex’s hand and looks down at their intertwined fingers for a long moment.

“Nicky?”

Nick only smiles and leans in and presses his nose into Alex’s cheek. Alex doesn’t usually have to deal with a drunk Nick, so he’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be doing here. He’ll just go with it. And he’s definitely feeling the drinks he had, but he also had an extra slice of cake to balance things out.

Nick hums and nudges Alex’s cheek with his nose. “Do you think anyone will notice if I sleep in your bed tonight?”

“It’s probably fine,” Alex says. “I’ll lock the door.”

“Thank you,” Nick says. He gently pats Alex’s chest. “You look nice.”

“So do you.”

“Hmm. You’re…”

Alex smiles. “I’m what?”

“You’re a lot.”

“I’m  _a lot_?”

“Yeah.”

“I have no idea what you’re saying right now,” Alex says.

“What I’m saying is…” Nick hums, finger tapping against Alex’s chest. “I just didn’t know you could feel all these things for one person.”

“Oh,” Alex says and runs his hand down Nick’s back. “Yeah, that’s a lot.”

“Yeah.”

Alex isn’t sure if he should find this whole thing funny, because he also sort of feels like he can’t breathe properly, and like he’ll never remember how, and like he can’t possibly leave this room and go back to the party where he’ll have to keep his distance. Which is exactly why they should get off this couch now, because otherwise they’ll never leave.

“Nick,” Alex says, “let’s find you some water and maybe a bite to eat, okay?”

Nick sighs, but doesn’t protest when Alex ushers him out of the library and back down the hall to the door in the back.

“I’ll still dance with you later,” Alex says.

Nick smiles at him and squeezes his hand before they head back out the door.


	83. vows, Chapter 16.3

**vows**

 

**Chapter 16.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I stay away from my phone for a few hours… A FEW HOURS… and the Ravens make 823420 moves?? thanks a lot guys

|

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

THEY GOT BRADY ROSENBERG

|

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

this is the only thing I care about now

*

“Oh my  _god_.”

“Wait, I thought I was supposed to carry you across the threshold.”

Ashley laughs. “Yeah, right.” She turns around to wave at her mom, who’s still waiting by the curb while Ashley tries to fumble her key into the lock of their house. Her mom waves back, but doesn’t drive away.

The key finally slides into the lock and Ashley kicks off her shoes as she walks into the house, her dress almost too big for the frame of the door, which is when her mom finally takes off. All three of her children are lurking in the hallway and Dylan meows at her, offended because she was gone all day.

Jamie bends down to pick up her shoes and gently puts them aside. “So… that dress…”

Ashley starts up the stairs, gathering up part of her skirt. “Yeah, you have to get me out of this thing somehow. At this point I don’t even care how you do it.”

“It’s okay, I’ll manage.”

He does manage, but it takes two fits of giggles and several colorful curses.

“You know, you looked beautiful in that dress,” Jamie says. He even hangs it up for her. “What do people do with their wedding dresses?”

“I don’t know. My mom always had hers in the back of the closet. She let me look at it sometimes.”

“Huh,” Jamie says.

“You can wear that suit again,” Ashley says and winks at him. “Actually, that’s a request. Please wear that suit again.”

Jamie looks awfully smug when he starts tugging at his bowtie.

Ashley steps out of her underskirt with a grin. “So… wedding night, eh?”

“Yeah,” Jamie says and starts peeling off his suit. “How do people still do  _anything_  after a day like this?”

“Jamie, darling, are you saying you want to sleep?”

Jamie smirks. “I mean, I wouldn’t say no to that.”

Ashley flops back onto the bed with a sigh. “I’ve never loved you more. Hey, can you get me a shirt?”

“Sure,” Jamie says and leaves the rest of his suit scattered across the floor. He hands Ashley a shirt to sleep in and sits down at the edge of the mattress. “Do you need anything else?”

“Nah…”

“Ash, you only say  _nah_  when you’re lying.”

“Does it make me a greedy monster if I’m actually hungry right now?” Ashley asks.

“You wanna share some grilled cheese?”

“Wow, aren’t you just the perfect husband?” Ashley says and climbs back out of bed, now wearing a shirt that is way more comfortable than that wedding dress.

Jamie makes them a grilled cheese sandwich in his underwear and his unbuttoned dress shirt and cuts it in half so they can share it. It’s not really what Ashley was imagining when she thought about her wedding night, but it’s somehow the best possible outcome.

“You know,” Ashley says, “wedding nights are probably way more exciting for people who’ve never interacted with a penis.”

Jamie snorts. “I think you might have a point there.”

Ashley picks up her grilled cheese and tugs at Jamie’s shirt. “Although,” she says, “I think I might have changed my mind about going to sleep.”

“Have you?”

“Maybe.” She bats her eyelashes at him. “Do you think I could change  _your_  mind if I seductively take a bite of this excellent grilled cheese?”

Jamie laughs. “Oh, absolutely.” He leans in to kiss her. “It’s weird that it’s already over. But you’re my wife now. I can walk around and be like, ‘Oh, this is Ashley, my wife.’ You’re my  _wife_.”

“Yeah,” Ashley says. She was so nervous earlier and now she has no idea why. She smiles at Jamie. “We did that.”

Jamie finishes his grilled cheese and licks his fingers.

“Do you think people get several happy endings in their lives?” Ashley asks. Because technically this is her happy ending, right? It seems a little early to already have it all.

“Oh, for sure,” Jamie says. “We’ll do tons of awesome stuff.”

“We will,” Ashley says, nodding.

Jamie is right. This is not  _the_  happy ending. It’s one of many.

*

“What time’s it?” Nick asks.

“Late,” Alex says.

They’re lucky that they only had to walk into the house and up the stairs. At this point, Nick is mostly tired, but still more alert than he usually is at this hour. Alex is sneaking him up to his bedroom, although so far there hasn’t been a lot of sneaking involved.

There’s a strip of light under the bathroom door down the hall and Nick can hear Nadira and Sarah giggling. Connor and Nessie left about half an hour ago; Nick assumes they’re already in bed. Alex’s mom and dad were right behind him and Alex when they headed back to the house and Alex said something about finding Nick a place to sleep.

“Where were you going to sleep?” Alex asks once they’re both in his bedroom.

“Um, a couch?” Nick says. “Any couch.” Actually, he was going to take a cab home, but then he had a couple of drinks, and his drunk self convinced his reasonable self that the only place he wanted to sleep tonight was Alex’s bed.

Alex laughs and shrugs off his suit jacket.

Nick’s is crumpled from hanging over his chair half the evening. He throws it on the couch by the window and stretches. “Can I borrow a shirt?” He doesn’t  _need_  a shirt, but he likes to steal things from Alex’s closet.

“Yeah,” Alex says and then catches him by the wrist. “Wait.”

“What?”

Alex pulls him closer. “We were gonna dance.”

“That’s right,” Nick says and leans against him, as close as he can.

He doesn’t know how to dance. Alex does, at least a little bit – he was dancing with his mom earlier. They’re really only swaying back and forth anyway, and Nick holds on tightly.

“Alex,” Nick says.

Alex’s fingers twitch against his back. “Hm?”

Nick wants to apologize that they couldn’t dance at the actual wedding, but he already knows that Alex won’t want to hear it. He’s also already babbled about his feelings earlier, and he sort of feels like he should apologize for that, too, but it might be better not to bring that up again. So he just gives Alex a squeeze and Alex laughs into his ear.

“Thanks for sneaking me up here,” Nick says.

“Anytime,” Alex says. “Actually…”

Nick hums. Alex won’t live here much longer. He’s meeting someone about the house on Monday morning. Nick promised him that he’d help Finn out at the rink while Alex is busy.

“I’m gonna have to tell Nadira and Connor that they have to move out,” Alex says. “I hate being that person.”

“They’ll be okay,” Nick says.

Alex sighs. He stops swaying and Nick stops with him and takes a step back, one hand still resting against Alex’s side.

“Alex?”

“I have to talk to my dad before he leaves,” Alex says. “About… you know… having a boyfriend.”

Nick’s lips twitch involuntarily when Alex calls him his boyfriend. They never actually had that talk. It’s just who they ended up being for each other. “Can I help?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “Don’t let me chicken out?”

“I think it’ll be okay,” Nick says.

“Yeah?” Alex asks.

Nick nods. “Yeah.” He nudges Alex. “Bed?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t mean to be a downer.”

“No, hey…” Nick tilts his head up to kiss him. He wants to say something else, but then Alex keeps kissing him and Nick swallows down everything else that was at the tip of his tongue.

He’ll get to say it all. It doesn’t all have to be on the same day.  

*

“How do you not die instantly in those?” Connor asks and nods at Nessie’s shoes, tipped over next to Connor’s on the floor.

Nessie sits up, pulling at the sheets. “Those? Those are not even bad.”

“Seriously?”

“Walking in high heels is my only skill,” Nessie says.

“You mean… aside from… being good at hockey.”

“Oh, yeah, hockey.” Nessie shrugs. “Anyway, it’s just a matter of practice, like most things are. Sometimes I think I’ve forgotten every word of Spanish I learned in high school and then I talk to Patty and it all kinda comes back. It’s all practice.”

“You speak Spanish? I thought you speak French?”

“Both,” Nessie says.

“Both?” Connor asks. “I’m so impressed right now.”

Nessie grins. “You should be.”

“One of the guys in Colorado tried to teach me Russian, but I don’t think I remember any of it.”

“Aw, that’s cute, though.”

Connor smiles.

Nessie touches a fingertip to his cheek. “You’re cute, too.”

“You think I’m cute?”

“Yeah, especially right now. You’re blushing.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are,” Nessie says. “And it’s cute.”

Connor pulls the sheets over his head. “Okay, let’s stop now.”

“It’s okay.” Nessie joins him under the sheets and scoots closer to him. “I won’t say another word. Cutie.”

“Shh,” Connor says and pulls her closer. “Hey, thanks for coming today.”

“I always like a good party.” Nessie taps Connor’s arm. “Speaking of parties… What are you doing this summer?”

“I’m not sure. I’m definitely taking my brother to Nashville, because he’s always wanted to go and I gave that trip to him for his birthday. And… I don’t know. Alex is having a hockey camp in August and I promised I’d say hi. And… we could hang out.”

“Definitely.”

“We could go to the beach.”

“The beach?”

“I don’t know,” Connor says. “You don’t like the beach?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of… a lake, maybe. Nice lake house. A grill.”

Connor nods. “Mac and cheese burgers?”

“Oh, you know me so well.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

“All right, then,” Nessie says. “Let’s… take that under advisement.” She pokes his arm again. “Are you gonna turn off the lights?”

“But then I’d have to get up.”

“Yep.”

Connor sighs dramatically and climbs back out of bed.

“And walk slowly, okay?” Nessie says as she resurfaces from under the sheets. “Very slowly.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re naked and I’m enjoying the show.”

Connor obliges and makes sure to twirl before he hits the light switch. Nessie’s laughter guides him back to bed in the dark.

“Hey, Connor?” Nessie asks.

“Yeah?”

“Can I pet the dog tomorrow morning?”

“For as long as you want,” Connor says.

*

“Shhh… we have to be quiet, I think I just heard Alex come up the stairs,” Nadira whispers as she makes for the bathroom door.

“I’m super stealthy,” Sarah whispers back.

Nadira nods and proceeds to bang the bathroom door against the wall, because she’s really not stealthy at all.

Sarah bursts out laughing.

“Shhh, we were gonna be quiet,” Nadira whines and makes a point in tiptoeing down the hall to her room.

Sarah follows her, shoes in hand.

Nadira took off her shoes a while ago. She’s pretty sure that she left them in the kitchen. She’ll go find them at some point tomorrow. It’s not like she ever wants to wear them again. Nasty murder shoes.  

“Wow,” Nadira says once they’re in her room. “Weddings are really stressful when you’re a bridesmaid.”

Sarah winks at her. “Yeah, especially when every single guy at the wedding wants to have a drink with you.”

“ _Please_.”

“You can’t deny that you were popular,” Sarah says and undoes the straps of her shoes.  

“You’re not jealous, are you?”

“No, I got to see their faces when I danced with you, so I’m all good.”

Nadira grins. “It was kinda funny. Jamie’s cousin literally invited me to his hotel room. He’s staying at the inn on the other side of town. You know, the cute one with all the flowers? Room eighteen. If you’re interested.”

“I think I’m okay right here.”

“Yeah, he’s like…” Nadira scrunches up her nose. “You know.”

“My ex?”

“I wasn’t gonna say it,” Nadira says and shimmies out of her dress. “But from what you’ve told me… yeah.”

“It was uncanny,” Sarah says. She starts pulling at the straps of her dress. Hers has a bunch more than Nadira’s dress does and it looks really good, but Sarah clearly has some issues getting out of her dress.

“Do you… need help?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Okay,” Nadira says and gets into her pajamas. She sits down at the edge of the bed and watches Sarah fight with her dress.

“There are just way too many straps. And too much fabric. I don’t know if I should pull it up or down.”

“Up,” Nadira says. She gets back up and helps Sarah out of her dress.

“I was totally okay. But thanks.” Sarah grabs a hanger and takes care of both their dresses, because apparently she’s an actual grown-up. “Where did I put my stuff? Did I… When I got here earlier, did I have a bag with me?” Or maybe she’s only, like, half a grown-up.

“Yeah,” Nadira says and points at her chair, “it’s right there.”

“Ahhh. What would I do without you?”

“Not sleep in my favorite Cardinals shirt?”

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says, her smile bright as she pulls on Nadira’s Josh Roy shirt. “Do you want it back?”

“No, it’s all yours. Looks nice on you.”

Sarah tugs at the hem and now her smile is so wide that her eyes crinkle.

Nadira absolutely means to tell her that she looks just as beautiful in that ratty old shirt as she did in her dress, but what comes out instead is, “I love you.”

Sarah freezes.

Nadira also freezes. Because… “Holy shit,” Nadira says, “I’ve never said that to anyone.”

“What, never?” Sarah asks.

“Never.” Maybe Nadira said it too early. She has no idea if there’s a timeline for these things. “Anyway, don’t feel like you have to–”

“Nadi,” Sarah says and comes over to the bed to give her a quick kiss. “I love you, too.”

“You do?”

“I do.”

Nadira pulls at Sarah’s shirt so she can steal another kiss, but Sarah might have needed a warning, because she stumbles onto the bed and takes Nadira down with her.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says, laughing quietly.

“It was my fault, I wanted to kiss you too much.”

“Aw,” Sarah says and gives her the kiss she wanted. “There you go.”

“Can I have another one?” Nadira asks, batting her eyelashes.

Sarah smiles. “As many as you want.”


	84. vows, Chapter 16.4

**vows**

 

**Chapter 16.4**

 

*

**Zach Goldman**  @ZGoldman

Kid said I could put this picture of us on the twitter if I finally stopped calling it the twitter

|

**Angelica Goldman**  @AngieGoldman

You forgot to attach the picture, honey

*

“I’ll be ready to go in a second, I swear,” Alex says. He’s going to the rink with Nick, even though the rink is technically closed for the weekend. He’s having dinner with his parents tonight, though, so it wasn’t hard for Nick to talk him into getting out of the house for a bit.

Alex can hear the two of them giggling in the kitchen. He should probably be glad that his parents are still so in love with each other. He grabs his shoes and tries to get into them without undoing the shoelaces first, because Nick is standing there, all ready to go, and Alex is having an extremely slow morning.

Connor and Nessie have left already to go out for lunch together, but Nadira and Sarah are still upstairs, so maybe Alex isn’t having the  _slowest_  morning.

Alex glances down the hall again. His parents are leaving tomorrow afternoon and then who knows when he’ll see them again. They’ll probably drop by when they’re back from Europe, but that’s weeks from now and Alex has to stop being a coward now,  _today_ , because he can’t live  with himself if he doesn’t.

“Actually, Nicky… Can you give me a few more minutes?”

“Yeah,” Nick says, and follows his gaze down the hall. “Sure.”

“Thanks,” Alex says.

He takes a deep breath and makes his way to the kitchen. His parents are on their own, which was exactly what he was expecting. They were clearly busy raiding his fridge. There’s food all over the counter.

“Alex,” his mom says. “We’ll clean up in here, don’t worry.”

“Yeah, no worries, I just…” Alex looks from his mom to his dad, who seems to be in an excellent mood this morning. “Mom, could I… I was wondering if I could talk to Dad?”

“Oh, of course, honey. I’ll…” She grabs her phone off the counter. “I’ll see if there’s anything I need to pack for tomorrow. Zach…” She gives his arm a squeeze before she walks out the door and closes it behind her.

“What was that all about?” Zach asks. “Are you guys conspiring?”

“No, we’re not– Dad.”

“Yeah? Is this about the house? I’ll let you buy that house if you really want to, but, really, I’d love to buy it for you. As a gift.”

“You guys have already given me so much.”

Zach shrugs. “Because we love you and we want you to have… whatever you want.”

Alex bites down on his bottom lip. He’s going to chicken out. He can already tell. When he walked down the hall, he was convinced that he’d do it, that he’d have the guts to finally put all cards on the table, but now he can feel his hands shaking. He tries to hide them in the pockets of his pants.

“Alex?”

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t about the house, was it?” Zach asks.

Alex shakes his head. “It wasn’t about the house.”

“What, then?”

He can’t say it. He just can’t. No matter how much he tries to push himself, the words won’t come out of his mouth.

Zach regards him for a moment and Alex can’t read the expression on his face, even though he knows he’s seen it before. A few seconds tick by before he realizes  _where_  he’s seen it before – in the hospital, after he’d woken up, when his dad was sitting next to his bed, telling him, that no, he wouldn’t play in the NHL, and no, there was nothing they could do about it, but that they were going to make it through this. Somehow. They’d find a way. Stone cold determination.

“Alex,” Zach says, and there’s something very calm about it. “Your mom clearly already knows what’s going on here, because otherwise she wouldn’t have disappeared like that. How bad is it?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says.

“Are you sick?” Zach asks. Still so calm. Whatever it is, they’ll make it through.

Alex shakes his head.

“What do you need?”

Alex needs him to be okay with this, just like his mom, but he can’t even say  _that_.

“Did you murder someone and bury their body in the backyard?” Zach asks. “Because if that’s what happened I’ll get you a good lawyer.”

“Dad,” Alex says.

“Not the time. Okay. I get it. It wasn’t funny.”

Maybe Alex would have found it funnier if he wasn’t so damn scared. “Mom said…” He trails off again.

“Yeah?” Zach prompts.

“She said you guys would always be on my side no matter what.”

“And she was a hundred percent right about that,” Zach says.

Alex swallows down the lump in his throat. He feels like a little kid. He feels like he broke something that can’t be fixed, he feels like he’s confessing and already knows that his dad will be angry. “Really?” Alex asks. He’s not sure why he can’t just believe that.

“Really.”

“But… really?”

“Really,” Zach says again. “I’ll say it as often as you want.”

Maybe Alex can say it now. Because his dad  _really_  will say it as often as Alex needs to hear it, and maybe that’s the most important thing he’s ever said to him. Alex stares down at the counter for a while before he forces himself to look up. “I… have a boyfriend.”

And that’s so not what he meant to say, but that’s out there now and he probably can’t take it back.

“You have a… boyfriend,” Zach says.

“Yeah.” Alex nods. “Mom doesn’t know that bit yet, actually.”

“Are you telling me that I know something that your mother doesn’t know?”

Alex shrugs. His hands are still shaking. Because this is… not acceptance. It’s not anything.

Zach tilts his head. “You were scared that I wouldn’t be okay with the boyfriend?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says and he hates that his voice cracks.

“Come here,” his dad says and holds out his arm. “I’m okay with the boyfriend. Come on, just let me hug you properly for once in your life, I know that you hate it, but…”

Alex goes and lets his dad hug him and he also hugs him back properly today. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“And what exactly are you sorry about?”

“Nothing really turned out the way you thought it would, did it?” Alex says.

“Oh,” Zach says and lets go of him. “I think everything turned out just fine.”

Alex blinks away a few tears and clears his throat. “I should go, I told Nick I’d go to the rink with him.”

“Yes, sure, go,” Zach says. “I’m proud of you, kid. Always. All the time.”

Alex doesn’t know what to say.  _Thank you?_  No. There is something, though, something he didn’t know how to bring up. He’ll just throw it in now. “I’ll be an assistant coach for the East Harbor team next season,” he says. He had a meeting with them last week. They told him they’d love to have him back. He hasn’t told anyone yet; he hasn’t even told Nick.

He will, probably when they’re at the rink. He should have at least mentioned that he had something to tell him, but there was so much going on already and it never seemed like a good time.

Okay. He had plenty of chances to say something. Maybe he feels a little guilty that he didn’t talk to Nick  _before_  he said yes to a new job.

Zach does look at least a little bit like he wants to say something like,  _I told you that you’d be good at that_ , but in the end he settles for, “I think that’s an excellent choice.”

Alex nods. Then he points at the door. “I gotta…”

“I should see if your mom wants to head out for lunch,” Zach says and follows him to the door.

Alex knows that they’ll never talk about this again, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

*

As he sits on the Goldmans’ staircase, Nick tries not to wonder what Alex and his dad are talking about, even though he has a pretty good idea. Alex told him that he needed to talk to his dad sooner rather than later, that he didn’t want to push it off any longer. Alex’s mom walks past him and smiles at him in passing, then it’s quiet.

Nick can’t help but feel nervous for Alex. He was nervous, too, when he told his parents, although he was never actually scared. At least he had that one thing.

He checks his phone and likes a few tweets. He usually doesn’t spend this much time on Twitter, but he needs to keep himself busy, so he won’t just stare down the hallway and wait for Alex. He posts a picture of Emily sleeping in a spot of sunlight on Instagram – he took it yesterday before he came to Alex’s for the wedding. He should swing by to check on her before they head to the rink.

Nick wonders where Byron is. Probably taking a nap. He was really excited when Nick fed him this morning, but it probably didn’t have that much to do with Nick, and more with the food.

When a door opens down the hall, Nick quickly unlocks his phone again, so he’ll look busy and not like he was waiting.

He looks up when Alex appears, closely followed by his dad. Neither of them looks angry and Zach is smiling a little when he looks at Nick, and then back at Alex, and then back at Nick.

“Boys,” Zach says, “have fun at the rink.”

“Thank you,” Nick says as he gets up.

Zach waves at them and wanders away down the other hallway.

Nick waits until he’s out of sight and turns to Alex.

“Let’s go,” Alex says, before Nick can even open his mouth.

“You…” Nick points down one hall, where the kitchen is, then down the other, where Alex’s dad just disappeared. “What happened?” Alex takes a deep breath, reaches out and then seems to change his mind halfway. Nick catches his hand before he can withdraw it. “You okay?”

Alex nods and looks down at their hands with a small smile. “Everything’s okay.”

“Okay,” Nick says, and somehow manages not to kiss Alex. “Let’s go.” He tugs at Alex’s hand and pulls him out the door.

They stop at his place so he can refill Emily’s food while Alex grabs the little mouse on a string that Emily so loves to murder – Nick constantly has to retie the string, because Emily keeps ripping it off.

Alex is quiet on the drive to the rink, but every time Nick looks over at him, Alex is smiling. Nick doubts that Alex wants to give him a play-by-play of his conversation with his dad, so Nick doesn’t ask. All he needs to know, in the end, is that Alex is okay.

Alex unlocks the rink’s door for them and grabs his skates from the front office. They both pull on their skates down on the bench, but Nick gets distracted and ends up just watching Alex tie his skates, deft fingers pulling at the laces.

“What?” Alex asks.

Nick shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Alex laughs and nods at Nick’s feet. “You need help with your laces, superstar?”

“Shut up,” Nick mutters and bends down to tie his own laces. When he’s done, he sits up and leans over to kiss Alex, only Alex clearly wasn’t expecting that and Nick only catches the corner of his mouth. “Hey…”

Alex turns his head and pulls Nick closer by the collar of his shirt. Alex gives him one very slow kiss and then pulls away again. “Nick…”

“Hm?”

“I lied to you about something,” Alex says, his voice low.

Nick blinks at him. He’s not sure how he’s feeling right now. Because Alex tends to be a little overdramatic sometimes, so when he says,  _I lied to you_ , it might not be anything big. Unless– “Is this about your dad? What did he–”

“No, my dad really was fine with it, it’s something else… Well, I guess I didn’t really  _lie_. I sort of… withheld information. I just didn’t know when to bring it up.”

“What?”

“I took the coaching job at East Harbor,” Alex says.

“You did? That’s great,” Nick says and kisses him again, because that definitely calls for a kiss.

Alex actually looks surprised. “It is?

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, I’m gonna be spending a lot of time… away from here,” Alex says. “I’ll have to drive down almost every day. I’ll be gone for roadies…”

“It’s only… what… twenty minutes from here, right?” Nick asks. “And I’ll also be gone for roadies, you know?”

“Thirty with traffic,” Alex says. “That’s not the point, though. I should have talked to you about this, I shouldn’t have just said yes to it, because it’s going to affect you, too.”

“But it’s what you wanted,” Nick says. “I’m glad you got what you wanted. I’m happy for you, okay?” It won’t make things easier for them, and maybe they won’t see each other as much as they used to, but he knows that Alex will love that job. They’ll manage.

Alex lets out a slow breath. “Thank you.” He smiles softly. “You know, when I have the house, you can come to my place.”

“Yeah,” Nick says. It’s only been a few months, but he’s already so, so tired of hiding this. Sure, he’ll go to Alex’s place, and it’ll almost feel like the real thing, but it won’t be. “Alex, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“If I wanted to tell someone… someone I trust, obviously… If I wanted to tell them that you’re my boyfriend, would that be okay with you?”

“That would be okay,” Alex says without hesitation.

“You don’t wanna know who it is?” Nick asks. He doesn’t even know who he’d tell yet, but he just doesn’t want to carry this around with him anymore. There must be someone in his life he trusts enough to tell them about this.

Actually, maybe he does have an idea.

Alex shakes his head. “No. I trust you with that.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” Alex says, “I do.”


	85. another summer, 17.1

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.1**

 

*

**jamie**  @jsully

you know what I don’t understand? when guys act like they lose all their freedom when they get married. you get to do exactly what you were doing before, but you get to share it? with your wife? it’s amazing.

|

**Finn Engel**  @finniescoots

this is too sappy I’m calling the police

*

“Don’t forget to bring sunscreen.”

“Mom,” Ashley says. She rolls her eyes at Jamie, who’s smugly eating leftover cake. Ashley’s pale ass will never forget to bring sunscreen in her entire life. Jamie gives her the  _Cut your mom some slack, she’s only trying to help_  look. It’s funny how he just knows whether Ashley is being overdramatic about her mom or not.

“I’m just saying, sometimes you forget the most obvious stuff. And by  _you_  I don’t mean you specifically. I mean… everyone.”

“I know.”

“You don’t want to leave anything important at home. Like your passport.”

“I have my passport, Mom.”

“Does Jamie have his passport?”

“Jamie has his passport,” Ashley assures her.

Jamie nods.

“Jamie also speaks French and he’s knows how to the get from the airport to our hotel. And he’s basically done packing, so it’s all good here,” Ashley goes on. They’re off to Paris for their honeymoon tomorrow and Jamie, who’s never even left the country, is so much more prepared for this trip than Ashley is.

What she has right now is a pile of tickets and other important documents, a suitcase that has exactly one dress in it, and a pile of clothes on their bed that she really needs to sort through. But Bowie was sleeping in the suitcase earlier and Ashley didn’t want to wake him up.

“Well, Ash, honey, that all sounds great, I know you two are going to love Paris.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“I’m so happy for you. You have an exciting time ahead of you, you’ll see. And, you know, I got pregnant when I was in Paris with your dad, so…”

Ashley forces out a laugh and says, “ _Riiight_ , well, I should go, because I have packed, like, one thing so far. I wish I was kidding.” She really didn’t need the reminder, not with all the relatives at their wedding insinuating that half a dozen babies were probably just around the corner for her.

“Of course,” her mom says. “And don’t forget the sunscreen. I’ll see you tomorrow when I pick you up.”

“Thanks, Mom, bye.”

Jamie raises his eyebrows at her as soon as she’s hung up the phone. “What did she say?”

“Huh?”

“The last thing she said that had you looking like you were staring into the abyss. What was that?”

“Oh. That.”

“Ash?”

Ashley presses her lips together. It’s definitely not the right time for this, but Jamie will be worried if she avoids having this conversation. They probably should have had this conversation before the wedding. A long time before the wedding, to be honest.

Hendrix darts into the kitchen and Ashley picks him up for moral support. He purrs when she hugs him against her chest. He’ll tolerate this for only a few minutes, so Ashley has to be quick.

“So, my mom said… I guess it was just a throwaway comment, but…” Ashley shakes her head. How to explain that subtle nudge? Well, she doesn’t have to explain, really, so she just says, “I’m not ready to have babies immediately.”

“Whoa, okay,” Jamie says and puts down his fork. “Did she say that she can’t wait to be a grandma?”

“Not exactly, but the implication was pretty clear.”

“Yeah, my mom’s the same, I talked to her last week and she was like, ‘Well, look at you getting married already. Are you ready for family life?’ And I was like, ‘We’ve been living together for years, I don’t think it’s going to change that much,’ and she said, ‘Maybe not immediately, but it only takes nine months for things to change.’ And, yeah… I told her to calm down, but…”

“You didn’t mention that,” Ashley says.

“I didn’t think it was important, since it’s not really part of the plan right now.”

Ashley nods. “Good. Okay. Great. Glad we talked about that.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll go pack now,” Ashley said and makes for the door.

“Ash,” Jamie says.

She slows down. “Yeah?”

“There’s no rush,” Jamie says. “No matter how much our parents wanna be grandparents. They can wait. Anyway, you still need to get that college degree.”

“That’s right, I do need to get that college degree,” Ashley says. Hendrix sinks his claws into her arm and she sets him down.

It’s community college for now, just to see if college really is what she wants. And then… Well, East Harbor isn’t far away and a lot of places offer online courses, too. It’s not so much about knowing exactly what she’s going to do and more about knowing that she’s doing  _something_. It’s about knowing that there’s still a way to move forward, and that she’s not stuck being who she is right now.

She’ll still teach skating, she’ll still work at the rink, but Alex has already told her that some things are going to change at the rink once the new season rolls around. He didn’t go into detail, but with Ashley working fewer hours, he might have to hire someone else. Ashley has decided that she’ll drop all her group classes and keep doing private lessons, so there might even be room for another figure skating coach. Finn can only take on so many students.

But who knows how everything will turn out.

“You know,” Ashley says, “I might end up being really bad at the whole college thing.”

“Nah, come on, you’ll ace it.”

“Will I?”

“I can help you make flash cards,” Jamie says and holds out his hand. “I mean, you helped me with all the studying I had to do, so it’s only fair.”

Ashley takes his hand and lets him pull her over to him, because who needs to pack anyway, right? She can buy a bunch of tacky tourist shirts in Paris and she’ll be all set.

They’ve been saving for this trip since high school. Back then, they didn’t know that it would be their honeymoon, but it’s a dream they never lost sight of. They started putting money in a piggybank and eventually opened an account – Ashley has been in charge of it for years and it felt strange to her to finally use it to book their flight and their hotel in the heart of the city.

“What are we going to do first?” Ashley asks. They bought a travel guide, but they agreed that making a plan for every single day was a bad idea. They’ll just walk through the city and discover all the beautiful hidden corners, but maybe they do need a place to start.

“Not to be the biggest cliché to ever walk the planet, but the Eiffel Tower?”

Ashley laughs. “Yeah.”

“Did you know that it sparkles?”

Ashley pats his arm. She has no idea why he’s so obsessed with it, but she’ll take Jamie to the Eiffel Tower every single day if it makes him happy. “I know.”

“Yeah, because I’ve told you about a billion times.”

“I’ll take you to see the sparkles,” Ashley says.

Jamie kisses the top of her head. “Thank you. Best wife ever.”

Ashley grins. Damn right she is.


	86. another summer, Chapter 17.2

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.2**

 

*

**NHL Watch**  @hockeywatch

Breaking: @NHLCardinals sign D Connor Walden to a two-year contract extension with an AAV of $2.2 million.

 

**ConnecticutCardinals**  @NHLCardinals

Where’s Waldo? Well, here he is, at the Cardinals offices, signing his contract extension!

*

Since Connor is still in town, he gets invited to the Cardinals’ offices to sign his contract. Two more years. He gets to stay just a little while longer and that’s exactly what he wanted. It wasn’t a hard negotiation. Of course he could have waited to see what other teams might offer him, but there are so many reasons for him to stay.

He’s told that the Cardinals will announce his contract extension later, but some insider will undoubtedly break the news before the Cardinals’ official channels will post their tweets and whatnot. For now, Connor has to wait, though.

As soon as he’s out of the office, he texts Shane to tell him he’s staying. Shane can keep a secret for a couple of hours. Then he texts Nick, because Nick can also keep a secret for a couple of hours. He’ll tell Alex when he gets home, although Alex probably already knows what’s going on. Connor only told him that he has a meeting and there was something in Alex’s answering smile that suggested that he knew exactly what that meeting was going to be about.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when Connor starts heading back home, so it’s a bit too early to pick up dinner on the way, but he stops at the bakery for some cupcakes.

It’s a Wednesday, so Alex isn’t at the rink. When Connor gets home, he finds him in the backyard with Byron, throwing a ball for him. A few days after the wedding, there’s basically no trace of it ever having happened, except for a few stray flower petals.

“How many years?” Alex asks when Connor joins him.

“Two.”

Alex grins. “Are you getting a raise?”

“Yep,” Connor says.

“Good.” Alex picks up the ball when Byron drops it at his feet. “You deserve it. You wanna throw the ball?”

“Please,” Connor says and takes it.

Byron turns to him, tail wagging like Connor is holding a bag of treats.

Once Connor has thrown the ball across the lawn, Alex clears his throat. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Everything okay?”

Alex chews on his bottom lip and shoves his hands into the pockets of his shorts. “Yeah, but you’re still not going to like this.”

“Did Byron eat my shoes? It’s okay, I forgive him.”

“No, he didn’t,” Alex says. “This is not about… I’m going to move out. And I can absolutely talk to my parents and ask them if you can stay, but–”

“Wait, you’re moving away?” Connor asks. Obviously he’s not happy that he won’t live with Alex and Nadira anymore, but he knew this wasn’t going to last forever. So it’s not so much about moving out and more about Alex leaving.

“No, I’m staying in town,” Alex says. “But I… There’s this house that I’ve always had an eye on and last week I saw that it was on sale, so…”

“So you bought a house?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s… so grown up of you.”

“You could buy a house,” Alex says with a shrug. “Anyway. I already had this talk with Nadi earlier and I’ll tell you what I told her… There’s no rush, I mean, I don’t know what my parents are going to do with this house once I’ve moved out, but it’s not like you have to move out right this second, but I’ll, uh… I’ll start packing up my stuff soon.”

“Aw,” Connor says and hugs Alex. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll still be around,” Alex says and awkwardly pats his arm.

“Can I come by and visit Byron?”

“Of course. Whenever you want.”

“Wow, this is kinda sad,” Connor says and holds on to Alex for a moment longer. “So that house… Where is it?”

“It’s on Winter Hill.”

“Winter Hill? You’ll be closer to the rink then.”

“Actually… I’m not gonna work at the rink anymore,” Alex says. “Finn’s taking over as manager in August.”

Connor has no idea what’s going on anymore. “What?”

“I’m gonna be an assistant coach at East Harbor.”

“Your college team?”

“Yep.”

“When did all of this happen?” Connor asks. He was right here and apparently he missed  _everything_.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t say anything, I just didn’t know it was all going to work out.”

“Yeah, I get it.” Connor lets go of Alex so he can throw the ball for Byron again. “Man, I need to find another roommate.”

“What about Nessie?” Alex asks.

“Wait a second,” Connor says. “Are you moving in with your boyfriend?”

“No,” Alex says, rolling his eyes. “We’re not really there yet.”

“Yeah, Nessie and I really aren’t there yet either,” Connor says. It’s only been a few weeks, so moving in together is completely out of the question, but Nessie is definitely part of the reason why he’s glad that he’s staying. Nessie still has another year left on her contract with the Panthers so she’s not going anywhere either.

Alex nods. “You guys seem good together, though.”

“I really like her,” Connor says, and his face is probably doing something really embarrassing, because he’s apparently not capable of talking about Nessie without a ridiculously huge smile on his face.

“Really, I had no idea.”

Connor elbows him in the ribs in reply. “Man, I’m so glad I got traded here. I wasn’t sure at first, because I didn’t really want to… I don’t want this to come out wrong, but, like, I didn’t want to come back here, because my parents aren’t super easy to be around, but then you said I could stay with you and it was just the best thing that could have happened.”

“Yeah, it really was.”

“Aw, Alex… Will you come to a game next season?”

“Yeah, I’ll bring my team.”

Connor gives him another squeeze because he just can’t help himself. “You’re gonna have a team. I’m so happy. I’ll buy a jersey.”

Alex laughs.

“I’ll come to one of your games, too, if I can. I promise.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I will,” Connor says. “I’ll bring Nick.” He crouches down when Byron comes back over to them and pats his head. “Buddy, I’ll miss you a lot.”

Alex sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Connor says. “I wanna look at the house. Actually, if you need help carrying stuff…”

“Thank you.”

“Sure. I mean, you didn’t even make me pay rent. I owe you.”

Alex shakes his head. “We’re all good.”

Connor gives him a pat, because he’s pretty sure that Alex won’t put up with another hug.

It’s funny that sometimes all it takes is one change. One change – that trade – and everything else changed with it.


	87. another summer, Chapter 17.3

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.3**

 

*

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

wow I’d give so much for things to just… stop happening for like five seconds

 

**Nadira Patel**  @nadipatel

I mean, things are allowed to happen, especially if they’re good things, but not this much, ya feel?

*

“All right, tell me if this looks okay?”

“Nadi, this is the third outfit that looks okay,” Sarah says carefully. “I think you should pick one of those.”

“Sarah.”

“Yeah, babe?”

“Don’t  _babe_  me right now,” Nadira says. “This is really important.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“I’ve never been this stressed  _in my life_.”

“It’ll be okay,” Sarah says. Nadira wants her to keep saying that until she believes it.

Nadira takes a deep breath and considers herself in the mirror. She’s wearing a dress and the best blazer she owns and her best pair of shoes and Sarah did her makeup and she’s prepared for this, but she’s really not prepared for this.

She has an interview.

At CTSN.

It’s her birthday in two days and all she wants is for this to go well. Obviously the universe doesn’t usually give people birthday presents, so she’ll have to rely on her skills and maybe also on sheer dumb luck.

Because the way she ended up scoring this interview also had a lot to do with sheer dumb luck. When they were recording their pre-draft podcast, Evan mentioned that one of his colleagues got fired and another one quit and Nadira, in passing, asked if he thought there was a chance that she might be a good fit for one of those positions.

And now she has that interview. Because she was nice to their intern at work. And their intern decided to invite her to the podcast he’s doing with some friends. And those friends have connections. In the end, though, she was the one who asked. She put herself out there. She didn’t need anyone else to set this up for her. She did this. She found a way.

Nadira takes another deep breath. She’ll keep doing that and then she won’t keel over from the stress. Hopefully. She’s not sure if she slept last night. She glanced at her alarm clock way too often and as soon as that interview is over she’ll come home, order pizza and take a nap.

She rocks back and forth on her feet. “There’s so much going on. Things need to stop happening.”

“Nadi, it’ll be okay. You’ll do amazing. And you’ll figure everything else out.”

_Everything else_  actually isn’t even that much. It’s mostly just that she has to pack up all of her crap and move out and find a place to live. Connor seems to be completely unconcerned and Nadira has definitely considered asking him if he wants to be roommates, but if Nadira gets this job and ends up covering the Cardinals, Connor will not want her as a roommate. So at this point, she has to wait and see.

“Okay, but what if I don’t get it?” Nadira asks.

“Then you’ll find something else.”

“What if there isn’t anything else?”

“Then you’ll be stuck with Brad for a little while longer.”

Nadira huffs. “I don’t like that. Shit, if I get this job, I can walk up to Brad and shout ‘I quit’ in his face.”

“Guess you’ll have to get that job, then.”

“I do need to get that job, because I’m actually going to have to pay rent,” Nadira grumbles. “And…” She laughs. “I’m gonna have to go looking for an apartment again. That worked out  _so_ well last summer.”

Sarah hums and leans back against the headboard. She’s still in her pajamas and Nadira is endlessly jealous.

“I don’t think these shoes are right,” Nadira says and dives back into her closet. She comes back out holding two pairs that might work. “What do you think?”

“Maybe we should find a place together?” Sarah says.

Nadira opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

Sarah presses her lips together, probably to hide a smile. “Too soon?”

“I don’t know?” Nadira says and waves her arms. “I was asking about shoes and you’re asking me to move in with you?”

“No, I’m not asking you to move in with me, because I live in Nessie’s apartment and there’s not enough room for you. But we could find a place together.”

“We could,” Nadira says.

Sarah nods. “If that sounds appealing to you.”

“I… I mean…”

“Nadi, if you want your own place–”

“No, I just don’t want us to live together and then have you realize that you actually hate everything about me.”

“Aw, Nadi.”

“I’m really messy,” Nadira says. “And I never empty the dishwasher.”

“I’ll empty the dishwasher and you’ll clean up something else.”

“Can I do the laundry? I actually don’t mind doing the laundry. Folding things gives me peace.”

Sarah smiles. “I think we might be onto something here.” She points at Nadira. “Try the pair on the right.”

“Okay,” Nadira says and kicks off the shoes she’s wearing right now to try on the other pair. “Okay, okay, okay.”

“Nadi, let’s talk about the whole moving in together business once the dream job business is taken care of, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Sarah says. “You’ll be fine.”

“Ahhhh…” Nadira points at her shoes. “These?”

“Better, I think.”

“I can’t drive with these, though.”

“I’ll drive you,” Sarah says without missing a beat.

“Would you really?”

“Sure.”

“Even if I end up wearing the shoes I can drive with?”

“I’ll drive you no matter what,” Sarah says.

“You’re so good to me.”

Sarah blows her a kiss. “You deserve it.”

Nadira smiles at her over her shoulder. “You’re the best.”


	88. another summer, Chapter 17.4

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.4**

 

*

**Connor Walden**  @ConnorWaldo

shoutout to friends who buy you fries because “you look hungry” (yes this tweet is about @NickRivera13 who is the absolute best)

*

Nick stands at the bottom of the stairs for a long moment. Alex is on the phone with someone down the hall in the kitchen and Sarah and Nadira are upstairs, getting ready for their night out. Nick has no idea where they’re going, but he was promised that there wouldn’t be any night clubs. They’ll probably head to a pub to celebrate Nadira’s new job.

Nick just got here – Alex opened the door for him, phone already in hand. They talked for about half a minute and Alex told him that he was waiting for a phone call and that no one else was ready to go yet. Nick has no idea where Connor is, but he assumes that he’s in his room and right now he’s trying to convince himself to walk up the stairs.

It’s Byron who eventually sneaks up to him and nudges his hand. Nick scratches his ears for a minute or two, and then Nick starts up the stairs with a sigh.

Connor’s door is slightly ajar, and when Nick knocks, Connor shouts for him to come in.

“Hey,” Nick says and gently pushes the door shut.

Connor frowns. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Can I talk to you?” Nick asks. He probably shouldn’t have started this conversation like that, because it sounds way too ominous.

“Sure?”

“I was wondering,” Nick starts, “and feel free to say no to this, but since Alex is moving out, and you and Nadira are moving out, I was thinking you might be looking for another roommate?”

Connor eyes go wide. “I mean, yeah, maybe?”

“I have a big house,” Nick says.

“You do.”

“If you want to take one of the spare rooms…”

“Really?” Connor asks.

“Yeah, I think I’d like having someone around,” Nick says. He’s been thinking about this a lot. He wouldn’t just want any roommate, though; he needs someone like Connor. Someone he trusts. “Think about it?”

Connor nods. “I’ve thought about it. I’m in.”

“Okay,” Nick says with a laughs. He was both hoping and dreading that this would happen. Because now comes the hard part. “If you really want to move in, I should tell you something.”

“I’m not allergic to cats,” Connor says.

“Good, I don’t want you to sneeze on Emily.”

“I’d never.”

“There’s something else, though,” Nick says. He’s surprised how level his voice is right now. Looks like he’s actually keeping it together. “I’m seeing someone and you’ll probably come across them, so I just wanted to give you a warning.”

Connor wiggles his eyebrows at him. “You are?”

“Yeah.”

“You never mentioned that. Since when?”

“March,” Nick says.

“Oh,” Connor says. “Wow.”

“Yeah, there was never really a good time to bring it up,” Nick says, and it’s only half a lie. He wasn’t going to say anything during playoffs. But he was scared, too, even though he’s never been so sure that he’s making the right choice in trusting someone. “Because, you know…”

Connor tilts his head, probably not quite sure how it’s hard to tell someone that you’re dating someone. When Connor told them all about Nessie it was almost in passing.

“It’s Alex,” Nick says.

“What?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Whoa, your… Okay? You and Alex are… You and Alex.” For a moment, it looks like something is piecing itself together in Connor’s mind and then he gets up and has his arms around Nick within about two seconds.

Nick isn’t sure what to do with that hug, because he was expecting something completely different. A lot more gaping and a lot more questions and maybe some confusion. This almost seems too easy.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Nick says.

“I won’t. Wait, does Alex know?”

“Yeah, I think he knows that we’re together.”

“No, does he know that you’re telling me?” Connor asks. “Where is he?”

“He’s on the phone. And he doesn’t know that I’m telling you. Yet. But it’s fine, he’s fine with it,” Nick says and he realizes that he’s about to start babbling, so he makes sure to keep his mouth shut.

“Nick,” Connor says and pulls away, “not to get involved in something that’s really none of my business, but I think I know someone who might want to talk to you.”

“Wait, what do you mean?”

“I know someone who…” Connor shrugs. “I think he’d… he could use a friend who’s in a similar situation. He can keep a secret.”

“Oh.”

“Think about it,” Connor says. “But I won’t say anything, I swear. Not unless you want me to.”

Nick nods. “Thanks, Waldo.” He’s not sure if he wants someone else to know about this. Saying it, in the end, wasn’t even so hard, but now that Connor knows, now that there’s one more person out there who’s keeping this secret, Nick feels like his insides are twisting themselves into a knot. He takes a deep breath, but it doesn’t help.

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“I know,” Nick says. He does know, so why does it feel like everything’s about to fall apart?

“Here…” Connor nudges him over to his bed. “Sit down.”

Nick does, because he doesn’t know what else to do and then Connor goes and opens the door and whistles and a moment later Byron comes flitting into the room.

“Pet the dog, Nick,” Connor says.

It startles a laugh out of Nick and he reaches out to pet Byron, who immediately presses his head against Nick’s leg. Connor sits down next to him, waiting patiently for Nick to get it together. It only takes him a couple of minutes, but those minutes seem to stretch out into eternity.

What is he scared of exactly?

Connor won’t tell anyone. Nothing will change, except now Nick has someone else on his side. A friend that he can talk to, and isn’t that what he wanted?

“It’s such a huge lie,” Nick eventually says.

“Yeah.”

It’s such a huge lie, but once he gives it some thought, he realizes that it seems smaller now. It’s not quite as heavy. Not quite as scary. The feeling won’t last, and Nick isn’t convinced that he ever wants to do this again, but this is more than he had a year ago.

It’s more than he ever trusted himself to have.


	89. another summer, Chapter 17.5

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.5**

 

*

**Sarah Albright**  @sassalbright

Happy to be part of the @panthersNWHL family for two more years!

*

When Sarah is done signing her name, she immediately knows that it was the right decision.

She knew it this morning, she knew it last night, she knew it when she first told Elena Turner that she was willing to talk about a contract extension, and she knew it when she talked to Nadira about it for the first time. This is not the step that’ll get her the most money, and it’s not the step that’ll do wonders for her career, but it’s the step that’ll take her exactly where she wants to be. On the ice. In the crease.

Talking to Nadira was the easy part. Nadira will support her in this until Sarah literally isn’t able to get on the ice anymore.

“I’ll make more money when I write for CTSN,” Nadira said. “So who cares. Play hockey. I can cover the rent and you can be awesome.” Nadira is absolutely delighted about that new job, but Sarah would bet good money that the most exciting thing for Nadira was that she got to tell Brad that she was leaving the  _Gazette_. They popped a bottle of champagne that night and Nadira reenacted the moment she quit for Sarah and Nessie.

Sarah is so happy for her, but she also doesn’t want Nadira to pay for more than Sarah pays for, and she was fine last season. “I’ll still work at the rink,” Sarah promised, and she’ll make a few thousand more than last season as well. Alex already told her that they’d need her back at the end of the summer. They won’t be able to move into a mansion any time soon, but they should be able to find themselves a nice little apartment. They’ll start looking at places in a few days.

Sarah sends Nadira a thumbs-up emoji when she’s signed her contract and then gets into her car and makes for the Mills. She has no idea if her parents will be home or not, but she’d rather get this out of the way right now.

When she rings the doorbell, heavy footsteps approach the door almost instantly.

It’s her dad who opens the door for her and smiles broadly. “If that isn’t my favorite daughter.”

“Hey,” Sarah says and gives him a hug. “Is mom home?”

“She’s in the kitchen. You wanna stay for dinner?”

“No, I don’t think Mom will want me to,” Sarah says and marches down the hall, her dad following at her heels.

“Sarah,” her mom says. “How are you?”

“Good, I have news.” She might as well cut right to the chase, because this is going to be unpleasant either way.

Her dad gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Do tell.”

“I signed a contract with the Panthers. I’m staying with them for another two years,” Sarah says, looking at her dad, because he’s the one who will be happy to hear this. “And I’m going to move in with my girlfriend.”

“Congratulations,” her dad says. “Two more years, huh? They must really like you.”

“I did help them win a championship.”

Sarah’s mom I suspiciously quiet, but that’s pretty much what Sarah was expecting when she walked in here.

“We should celebrate,” Sarah’s dad says. “Don’t you think, Naomi?”

Still nothing.

“Mom,” Sarah says. “Can’t you just be proud of me? Can’t you just be proud because I’m good at what I’m doing? Can’t you be happy because I’m happy? Why is this so hard for you?”

“Sarah,” her dad says, but it’s a half-hearted warning.

“I  _am_  happy for you.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t really look like you are.”

“I have trouble understanding why you’re so adamant about refusing to grow up,” her mom says. “I’m happy that you won a trophy and I’m happy that you got what you wanted, but, in the end, what you want is–”

“Not what you want for me,” Sarah interrupts. “Yeah, I know.”

“I only want your best.”

“What makes you think that this isn’t exactly what’s best for me?” Sarah asks.

Her mom shakes her head. “I just don’t understand, Sarah.”

“Well,” Sarah says, “come to one of my games for once. Meet Nadira. Maybe then you’ll get it, because so far you haven’t even  _tried_  to understand.”

Sarah’s dad puts his hand on her back and it nearly has Sarah bursting into tears. But only nearly. She stands her ground. She won’t stop now and she’s not walking away from this.

Her mom sighs. “I’m sorry that you feel like this. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll come to your next game.”

“And you’ll meet Nadira?”

“And I’ll meet your… Yes.”

“ _Nadira_ ,” Sarah says.

“Yes, Nadira.”

“Thank you. I’ll text you my new address once we’ve found an apartment,” Sarah says and then walks away without saying goodbye.

Her dad follows her to the door. “Sarah,” he says, “thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on your mother.”

Sarah shrugs. “This is not for her. It’s for me. I want my mom to try. For me.”

“She will,” her dad says.

Sarah nods. Her mom will try. For the first time. She shouldn’t have had to fight for this, but life doesn’t really care about how things should or shouldn’t be.

When she walks to her car and sits in the driver’s seat, she doesn’t know if that actually went well, but it doesn’t matter.

It feels like victory.


	90. another summer, Chapter 17.6

**another summer**

 

**Chapter 17.6**

 

*

**EastHarborHockey**  @EHHockey

We have news! Joining our coaching staff next season are former East Harbor forward Alexander Goldman as assistant coach, and former Wallace University goalie Samuel Cho as goaltending coach.

*

“Come in… Byron. Stop it. No…”

“It’s okay,” Nick says and pats Byron’s head as he glances into the house. “So, this is it.”

“This is it,” Alex confirms. He ushers Byron out of the way so Nick can come in. Alex drove over all of his boxes with Connor while Nick helped Finn out at the rink, and now Nick is here to help him unpack.

“I, uh, love your boxes,” Nick says, “they make the place so much more charming.”

“Shut up,” Alex says and pushes the door shut.

The house is tiny compared to the one he just moved out of, but to him it’s still bigger than strictly necessary. Downstairs is the living room, the kitchen, with a small dining room, a little bathroom and then another room that he might use as a study. His dad told him to take all the books he wants from the other house, so Alex took his word for it and brought over several boxes full of books. He doesn’t have shelves yet, but he doesn’t have to figure that out immediately. Upstairs he has three empty rooms, plus two bathrooms.

He brought over his bed, so at least he’ll be able to sleep here tonight, and he went to IKEA yesterday to buy whatever he’ll need in the kitchen. He brought his blender. And his favorite mugs. His parents won’t miss those. One of these days he’ll also get his TV, but he doesn’t even have a couch yet, so his laptop is good enough for now.

“So,” Nick says. “What do you need?”

“Um…” Alex looks around, at his boxes, all unopened, and his IKEA bags. Byron has found himself a spot by the window, where he’s now curled up with his dragon and an old blanket. Alex moved into this place without much of a plan. He doesn’t have furniture and nowhere to put all his belongings, but he’s really much happier than someone who’ll probably eat dinner sitting on the floor for the next couple of days should be. “You wanna take me out to dinner later?”

Nick stares at him. “Like, on a date?”

“More like two old friends catching up,” Alex says.

“Yeah,” Nick says, “of course. Sure. Wherever you want to go.”

“Thanks.” Alex reaches out to pull him closer and Nick leans against him like he was waiting for it. “And thanks for helping out at the rink. I owe you. Maybe I should pay for dinner.”

“I don’t care who pays for dinner,” Nick mumbles.

Alex hums and closes his eyes. Nick’s skin is cool from the air conditioning, and he smells like the rink. Apparently people noticed that Nick was there again today and started showing up, asking for autographs, and they had a lot more customers than they usually do on a summer day like this one.

“I’ll miss the rink,” Alex says.

“The rink will miss you, too,” Nick says. “It’ll be weird not to have you there when I go in for my sessions in August.”

“I’ll try to drop by every now and then.” He sighs and lets go of Nick. “Maybe I should unpack some of these.” He opens the next best one that says  _Random Shit_  in Connor’s handwriting.

Nick peers into it and pulls out a stack of photos. “Oh, hey, these can go on your fridge.” He holds up one that’s framed. “You should hang this up, too.”

Alex takes the photo from him. It’s the one of him, Mattie and Charlie. “Really?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know… Mattie is technically my ex.”

“He was your friend, too.”

Alex stares down at the picture. “He was.”

“It’s up to you,” Nick says.

Alex smiles at him. “You know, East Harbor announced next season’s coaching staff today.”

“I saw.”

“Yeah, I saw you liked the tweet.” Alex slowly trails his fingers down Nick’s back. “Looks like a lot of people are really excited about it for some reason.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I didn’t think anyone would care.”

“Really?” Nick asks.

Alex shrugs. He left East Harbor years ago. And, fine, maybe he was pretty popular back then, maybe he played on the first line, maybe he won the team a bunch of games, but that was a long time ago. He stopped playing and even though they told him that they’d always have a place for him on the team if he wanted it, Alex never knew how to go back there and not be a player.

He didn’t get it yet, back then, that there was more to a team than the guys who score the goals and the guys who guard the net. And so he pulled away from it all, and he never realized that people still cared so much. That they even remembered.

He pulls at the flaps of another box. It’s older than all the other ones and it doesn’t have any writing on it. Alex brought this one over on his own, yesterday, after he got the keys for the house. Connor wouldn’t have known where to look for this one. It was in Alex’s old room, collecting dust with two other ones.

The box is half-empty, because Alex took out his skates a few months ago. Now all that’s in there are two jerseys, one dark red, one white. Alex pulls out the home jersey and holds it up. “They changed the logo. I think two years ago.”

Nick pulls at the hem, so Alex will turn it over and show him the back.  _Goldman_.  _11_. “You were number eleven?”

“Yep.”

“I didn’t know,” Nick says with a frown.

“Does it matter?”

“No, I just… It seems weird that I didn’t know that.”

“Well, now you do…” Alex gently tugs the jersey away from Nick and pulls it over his head. It’s too big without the pads, and he’s a little skinnier than he used to be. He hands his phone to Nick. “Here, take a picture.”

“You need a stick or something.”

“I don’t have a stick, just take the picture.”

“Go sit next to Byron,” Nick says and pushes Alex across the room. “Who’s the picture for?”

“Oh, just the East Harbor people. I thought they might like it.”

Nick’s smile is soft when he takes the picture, then he sits down on the floor with Alex. “I’m glad you’re doing this.”

Alex pulls at the jersey’s sleeves. “I didn’t think I’d ever put this on again.” After his accident, Alex thought it was all over. He’d never skate again, he’d never play hockey, he’d never be who he always thought he’d be.

But it’s true that Goldmans never really leave hockey behind.

Alex should have known that he’d find his way back in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!
> 
> This is it from me for now.
> 
> I will definitely post some outtakes and extras, which will be posted both on this account and on this story's tumblr (thesameoldstreets.tumblr.com). 
> 
> There will definitely be more hockey stories from me.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading this story, and for leaving comments and kudos :)


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